As a major buyer of OPEC crude, India is hoping to leverage its ties with the oil producer bloc to gain "preferential treatment," the country's petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan told.

Members of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) earned about $433 billion in net oil export revenues in 2016, the lowest since 2004. In real dollar terms, the 2016 revenue represents a 15% decline from the $509 billion earned in 2015, mainly because of the fall in average annual crude oil prices and, to a lesser extent, because of decreases in OPEC net oil exports.

Algerian energy minister Noureddine Boutarfa said Thursday he believes there is a consensus among countries participating in the OPEC/non-OPEC oil production cut deal regarding the necessity to extend the agreement by nine months through March 2018.

OPEC will decide formally whether to extend the cuts when its ministers meet in Vienna on May 25. The producer group and other major suppliers including Russia agreed last year to cut their collective production by about 1.8 million barrels a day for the first half of 2017 in an effort to reduce bloated global stockpiles and re-balance the market.

"The good news is that the market is moving towards rebalancing," Saudi Aramco CEO Amin Nasser said at the International Oil Summit in Paris last week. "There has also been a rapid drawdown of floating storage in the first quarter of this year. This is being driven by improving fundamentals and the OPEC deal."

OPEC's largest producer Saudi Arabia averaged 9.97 million b/d in April, according to the survey, below its quota under the deal of 10.058 million b/d.

Morgan Stanley analysts say that while Opec has hit its target by cutting as much as 1.4m barrels a day of output to try and support the market, shipping data suggests the group’s exports have declined by less than 1m b/d since the start of the year.

OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers look likely to extend their agreement to limit supplies beyond its June expiry to help clear a glut, three OPEC delegates said on Thursday, downplaying the chance of additional steps such as a bigger cut.

The June crude oil contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange dropped 39¢ on Apr. 24 to close at $49.23/bbl. The July contract decreased 39¢ to $49.58/bbl. The natural gas price for May fell 3.5¢ to a rounded $3.07/MMbtu. The Henry Hub cash gas price was $2.98, down 6¢. The Brent crude contract for June on London’s ICE fell 36¢ to settle at $51.60/bbl. The July contract was down 31¢ to $52.13/bbl. The May gas oil contract declined $1.75 to $465.75/tonne. OPEC’s basket of crudes closed Apr. 24 at $49.64/bbl, down 35¢.

Brent crude futures were at $53.34 per barrel at 0715 GMT (3:15 a.m. ET), up 41 cents, or 0.77 percent, from their last close. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were up 32 cents, or 0.63 percent, to $50.76 a barrel.