Investing.com - Oil prices pushed higher during North American hours on Monday, as appetite for riskier assets improved after the FBI said no new evidence was found to warrant charges against Hillary Clinton in the investigation of her emails just two days before the U.S. election.
The news lifted a cloud over Clinton's presidential campaign and possibly blunted momentum for rival Donald Trump.
Markets have tended to see Clinton as the status quo candidate, and news favoring her bid often boosts risk appetite.
Crude oil for December delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange tacked on 44 cents, or 1%, to $44.51 a barrel by 9:05AM ET (14:05GMT). The contract dropped to $43.57 on Friday, the lowest level since September 20.
New York-traded oil futures lost $4.63, or 9.5%, last week, as investors reacted to a record weekly surge in U.S. crude inventories and a rising U.S. rig count.
Elsewhere, Brent oil for January delivery on the ICE Futures Exchange in London rose 33 cents, or 0.72%, to $45.91 a barrel. It fell to $45.08 in the prior session, a level not seen since August 11.
London-traded Brent logged a decline of $4.13, or 8.3%, last week, the biggest weekly loss since the middle of January, amid fading expectations of a coordinated production cut among major global oil producers.
OPEC reached an agreement to cap output to a range of 32.5 million to 33.0 million barrels per day in talks held in Algeria in late September. However, the 14-member oil group said it won’t finalize details on individual output quotas until its next official meeting in Vienna on November 30.
The possibility that producers could walk away empty-handed from the November meeting looms large after Iraq, Iran, Nigeria and Libya all signaled they might not take part in the proposed production cut deal. Russia’s unclear stance is also fueling uncertainty.