Investing.com - Oil prices held steady on Friday, as market players continued to weigh developments surrounding a landmark agreement between major oil producers to reduce crude output and looked ahead to a measure of production in the U.S.
Crude oil for February delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange slipped 2 cents, or 0.04%, to $53.74 a barrel by 3:39AM ET (08:39GMT), after jumping 50 cents, or around 0.9%, a day earlier.
Elsewhere, Brent oil for March delivery on the ICE Futures Exchange in London dropped 4 cents, or 0.07%, to $56.85 a barrel. London-traded Brent prices rallied 43 cents, or 0.8%, on Thursday.
January 1 marked the official start of the deal agreed by OPEC and non-OPEC member countries such as Russia in November last year to reduce output by almost 1.8 million barrels per day.
The deal, if carried out as planned, should reduce global supply by about 2%.
Thursday's prices rose following reports of supply cuts from Saudi Arabia and Abu Dhabi coming into effect as part of efforts by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other producers to curb a global supply glut.
However, some traders remain skeptical that the planned cuts will be as substantial as the market currently expects.
Analysts warned that OPEC had a poor track record of complying with promises to reduce supply and that higher prices would inevitably lead to an increase in production from U.S. shale firms.
With this in mind, market players looked ahead to data from Baker Hughes released later on Friday to gauge the increase in U.S. drilling activity.
Last week, the oilfield services provider said that the number of rigs drilling for oil in the U.S. increased by 2 to 525 in what was the ninth straight weekly rise and a level not seen in almost a year.