By Seher Dareen
LONDON (Reuters) -Oil prices edged up on Tuesday ahead of an OPEC+ meeting on Sunday, while expectations mounted that an escalation of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine would disrupt supply.
Brent crude was up 31 cents, or around 0.45%, at $68.46 a barrel by 1317 GMT, having risen just over 2% earlier.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude was at $64.96 a barrel, 95 cents or nearly 1.48% higher. WTI futures did not settle on Monday due to the Labor Day holiday in the United States.
“Brent futures are trending towards the upside ahead of the OPEC+ decision and geopolitical concerns over direction of Russia’s stake in the crude supply pool,” independent analyst Gaurav Sharma said.
Investors will monitor a meeting of eight members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and their allies on September 7.
Analysts said they believed the group would not unwind the remaining voluntary cuts in place from the eight members, including Saudi Arabia and Russia, which were supporting the market and keeping prices in the $60 a barrel range.
OPEC+ might wait for more data after the conclusion of the U.S. summer driving season before it makes its next move, Sharma said, given an expected supply surplus in the last quarter of the year.
Expectations that U.S. data will show another crude draw were also boosting the market, UBS analyst Giovanni Staunovo said.
The U.S. summer driving season officially finished with Monday’s Labor Day holiday, ending the highest demand period in the world’s largest fuel market.
On the supply side, Ukrainian drone attacks have shut down facilities accounting for at least 17% of Russia’s oil-processing capacity, or 1.1 million barrels per day, according to Reuters’ calculations.
Meanwhile, Kazakhstan’s daily crude oil output rose to 1.88 million barrels per day (bpd) in August from 1.84 million bpd in July, a person familiar with the data told Reuters on Tuesday.
(Reporting by Seher Dareen and Enes Tunagur in London, Anjana Anil in Bengaluru and Colleen Howe in Beijing; Editing by Alexandra Hudson, Emelia Sithole-Matarise, Barbara Lewis and Tomasz Janowski)
