Crude prices rise on New York Mercantile Exchange

Oil prices rose on Friday as investors digested news that major producers could cooperate on production cuts to alleviate the global glut of crude, the Market Watch reported.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, West Texas Intermediate futures CLH6, +3.07% were trading up 0.9% at $33.53 a barrel. Brent is on track to rise by almost 10% for the week, while WTI is up around 4%.

OPEC has traditionally regulated its output to support prices. However, in the past two years, the group has reversed that tactic by letting production run freely to defend their market share in the face of stiffer competition from Russia, the U.S. and other non-OPEC players.

So far there have been few signs that OPEC could reverse that policy. In December, the organization ended a contentious meeting without any agreement to restrain production, leaving members to continue pumping crude at near-record levels into an already oversupplied market.