Oil prices edge up

Oil markets stabilized in cautious trading on Friday ahead of an OPEC decision that is likely to keep the market oversupplied and sets aside warnings of a second lurch lower in prices as some members like Iraq and Iran look to ramp up exports. Front-month Brent futures LCOc1 were trading at $62.18 per barrel at 0319 GMT on Friday, up 15 cents, while US crude futures CLc1 were up 2 cents at $58.02. Yet overall market fundamentals remain weak, with millions of barrels of crude loaded in tankers waiting for buyers. With oil prices having rebounded by more than a third after hitting a six-year low of $45 a barrel in January, OPEC officials in Vienna see little reason to tinker with a strategy that seems to have resurrected moribund growth in oil consumption and put a damper on the US shale boom, according to Reuters.