Oil prices rise slightly ahead of OPEC+ meeting next week | Reuters

Oil prices rise slightly ahead of OPEC+ meeting next week | Reuters

Oil prices rose slightly on Thursday on expectations that fuel demand held up despite soaring Omicron coronavirus infections and that OPEC and its allies would continue to increase imports only incrementally.

Gains eased as the world's top importer China cut the first batch of crude import allocations for 2022.

Brent crude futures settled at $79.32 a barrel, up 9 cents, or 0.11%. U.S. crude futures rose 43 cents, or 0.56%, to settle at $76.9 a barrel, the seventh straight session of gains.

"We've had incredibly strong demand numbers through December, so now the question is what OPEC will do," said John Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital Management in New York. Kilduff expects the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, known as OPEC+, to continue to add incrementally to production.