Oil edges up on Venezuela and Iran sanctions, OPEC supply cuts

Oil prices crept up on Thursday amid ongoing OPEC-led supply cuts and U.S. sanctions against exporters Venezuela and Iran, but gains were capped by record U.S. crude output and rising commercial fuel inventories.

Brent crude futures were at $66.12 per barrel at 0757 GMT, up 13 cents, or 0.2 percent, from their last close.

U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures were at $56.24 per barrel, up 2 cents.

Prices are being supported by efforts led by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other countries - a grouping known as ‘OPEC+’ - to withhold around 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil, a strategy aimed at tightening markets.

“In our view, OPEC’s strategy is to rebalance the market as quickly as possible and exit the cuts by the end of June in order to grow production alongside shale producers in the second half of this year,” U.S. investment bank Goldman Sachs said in a note on Wednesday.