Oil prices settle mixed as traders await OPEC+ decision

Oil prices settled mixed on Thursday as market participants awaited a key decision from the world's major producers on whether they would deepen output cuts.

The West Texas Intermediate for March delivery rose 20 cents to settle at 50.95 U.S. dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude for April delivery decreased 35 cents to close at 54.93 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.

"After a 20 percent price slide in the past two weeks, the oil market appears to have embarked on a technical countermovement," Carsten Fritsch, energy analyst at Commerzbank Research said in a note on Thursday.

Traders eyed on possible production cuts from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and its allies, a group known as OPEC+.

Delegates from OPEC and its allies weighed the impact of the coronavirus on oil demand these days, with Saudi Arabia pushing for deeper oil-production while Russia favored an extension of the current deal, according to some reports.

In December, the group agreed to deepen production cuts by an additional 500,000 barrels a day, bringing the total cuts to 1.7 million barrels daily.

The OPEC, Russia and other producers have been largely limiting oil output in recent years in order to boost prices.