By Barani Krishnan

Investing.com – Monday saw oil prices rise to the beat of OPEC (and its allies), who said they weren’t going to let market slip by increasing the number of barrels beyond the 400,000 daily limit they have agreed to.

“The group is clearly perfectly happy with (existing) price levels,” Craig Erlam, analyst at online trading group OANDA, said as crude prices hovered around $85 per barrel, almost double from where they traded a year ago. “This is clearly a very bullish market.”

The U.S. settled at $84.05 per barrel, up 46cs or 0.6%

The global benchmark for oil was traded in London and closed the session at $84.71, a 33-cent increase or 0.4%.

Initial Crude Prices fell Monday due to the release by China of strategic stockpiles in order to lower domestic energy prices.

However, the production levels were up by the New York end of the session. This was in line with the agreement of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its 13 member countries.

Thursday is the regular monthly meeting of OPEC+. 

While the OPEC+ Meetings were a good way to resolve supply-demand problems in the market earlier in the year. The past few meetings of the cartel have served only to increase crude prices and allow the cartel to say what the traders knew.

Thursday’s meeting will likely be as “swift and consistent with the last,” said Erlam, adding that he expected world leaders to again be “disappointed with the worsening oil market deficit.”

Crude prices got a boost on Monday for another reason: Bank Of America’s call that $120 a barrel might be possible by June 2022.