The West Texas Intermediate for August delivery added 1.76 U.S. dollars to settle at 75.23 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, hitting its highest level since October 2018. Brent crude for September delivery increased 1.22 dollars to close at 75.84 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.
The above moves came as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, collectively known as OPEC+, delayed its ministerial meeting until Friday to hold more talks on oil output policy.
"The 31st Meeting of the Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) and the 18th OPEC and non-OPEC Ministerial Meeting have adjourned and will continue tomorrow, Friday, 2 July 2021, at 15:00 and 16:30 (CEST), respectively, via videoconference," the OPEC said in a statement on Thursday.
The oil alliance is expected to make a decision to continue to moderately increase output beyond July.
"We expect production to be expanded by 500,000 barrels per day in August," Eugen Weinberg, energy analyst at Commerzbank Research, said in a note on Thursday.
OPEC+ made deep output cuts last year as the pandemic hurt global fuel demand and is restoring production as economic recovery continues in most parts of the world.
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