Investing.com - Oil prices edged higher on Monday, following reports that Saudi Arabia will extend deep supply cuts into April to stop a new global glut forming.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures for April delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose 31 cents, or around 0.55%, to $56.38 a barrel by 8:40AM ET (12:40 GMT).
Elsewhere, Brent oil for May delivery on the ICE (NYSE:ICE) Futures Exchange in London tacked on 50 cents, or about 0.75%, to $66.23 a barrel.
Saudi Arabia plans to cut its crude oil exports in April to below 7 million barrels per day (bpd), a Saudi official told Bloomberg.
"This will keep production well below 10 million bpd in April," the official said. The kingdom agreed to a ceiling of 10.311 million bpd under an OPEC-led supply cut agreement at the end of last year.
Prices were also supported after Saudi oil minister Khalid al-Falih said that an end to OPEC-led supply cuts was unlikely before June. Al-Falih told Reuters on Sunday it would be too early to change OPEC+ output policy at the group's meeting in April.
OPEC and other producers such as Russia, colloquially known as OPEC+, agreed in December to reduce supply by 1.2 million bpd from Jan. 1 for six months.
The group will meet in Vienna on April 17-18, with another gathering scheduled for June 25-26, to discuss supply policy.
Gains were held in check as investors remained cautious over a possible global economic slowdown after important data in the U.S. and China - the world's two largest oil consumers - missed expectations last week.
In other energy trading, gasoline futures added 0.9% to $1.819 a gallon, while heating oil was little changed at $2.000 a gallon.
Natural gas futures sank 2.9% to $2.782 per million British thermal units.
-- Reuters contributed to this report