* U.S. crude, fuel stocks fell last week; output rises -EIA
* Saudi king says OPEC+ pact 'essential' for oil market
stability
(New throughout, updates prices, market activity and comments
to settlement, adds OPEC+ meeting details and PSM details)
By Jessica Resnick-Ault
NEW YORK, Dec 30 (Reuters) - Oil prices rose slightly on
Thursday on expectations that fuel demand held up despite
soaring Omicron coronavirus infections and that OPEC and its
allies would continue to increase imports only incrementally.
Gains eased as the world's top importer China cut the first
batch of crude import allocations for 2022.
Brent crude futures settled at $79.32 a barrel, up 9
cents, or 0.11%. U.S. crude futures rose 43 cents, or
0.56%, to settle at $76.9 a barrel, the seventh straight session
of gains.
"We've had incredibly strong demand numbers through
December, so now the question is what OPEC will do," said John
Kilduff, a partner at Again Capital Management in New York.
Kilduff expects the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting
Countries and its allies, known as OPEC+, to continue to add
incrementally to production.
China, the world's top crude importer, lowered the first
batch of 2022 import quotas to mostly independent refiners by
11%.
"Market sentiment weakened on worries that the Chinese
government could take stricter actions against the teapots," a
Singapore-based analyst said, referring to the independent
refiners.
Still, global oil prices have rebounded by between 50% and
60% in 2021 as fuel demand roared back to near pre-pandemic
levels and deep production cuts by OPEC+ for most of the year
erased a supply glut.
U.S. Energy Information Administration data on Wednesday
showed crude oil inventories fell by 3.6 million barrels in the
week to Dec. 24, which was more than analysts polled by Reuters
had expected.
Gasoline and distillate inventories also fell, versus
analysts' forecasts for builds, indicating demand remained
strong despite record COVID-19 cases in the United States.
Oil prices also drew support from steps taken by governments
to limit the impact of record high COVID-19 cases on economic
growth, such as easing testing rules.
OPEC+ will meet on Jan. 4 to decide whether to continue
increasing output in February.
Saudi Arabia's King Salman said on Wednesday the OPEC+
production agreement was needed for oil market stability and
that producers must comply with the pact.
Iraq said it would support sticking to existing OPEC+
policies to raise output by a combined 400,000 bpd in February.
Shell said it had resumed exports of Forcados oil in
Nigeria, easing one of three major global outages which also
include Ecuador and Libya.
(Reporting by Dmitry Zhdannikov, Sonali Paul and Florence Tan;
editing by Barbara Lewis, Jason Neely and David Gregorio)
