Oil prices began their first session of the year rising on Monday, with the two benchmark prices even returning to ten-month highs, before the highly anticipated decision by the Opep+ market on February's production level.

Around 10:30 GMT (11:30 in Paris), a barrel of Brent from the North Sea for delivery in March rose 1.53% in London, to 52.59 dollars, shortly after touching 53.33 dollars, a price that has not been seen since March 3, 2020.

For its part, the American barrel of WTI climbed 1.01% to 49.01 dollars, after climbing to 49.83 dollars, close to the 50 dollars mark, which it has not crossed since February 26 last year.

The market is looking forward to the ministerial summit of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and their allies via the Opep+ agreement, which will once again be held by videoconference and whose start time has been brought forward to 13:30 GMT (14:30 in Paris).

At the beginning of December, the alliance countries decided to increase their production, which they voluntarily limit, by only 500,000 barrels per day, to avoid flooding the market with the two million barrels per day initially planned.

This time around, “Russia would be inclined to increase production again, but not Saudi Arabia,” according to corridor noise reported by CMC Markets analyst David Madden.

Although the cartel and its allies had “paved the way for a gradual return of 2 million barrels per day to the market over the coming months” during the last cycle of meetings, between November 30 and December 3, it is “ready to adjust these levels according to market conditions and developments”, the OPEC Secretary General, Mohammed Barkindo, explained on Sunday.

Helima Croft, an RBC analyst, believes that the producer group will “play it safe” and “choose to forgo any further increase in production for the month of February, as Covid-19 cases continue to rise and the deployment of the vaccine being slower than expected.”

The weakness of the dollar was also helping to support crude oil prices. The dollar index, which compares the greenback to other major currencies, was trading at its lowest level in two and a half years on Monday