Oil prices are largely unchanged on Monday morning. However, there is a marginal increase from the level at the close of trading on Friday at 5 pm.

Investors are treading carefully ahead of economic data from both the US and China this week, while expectations of further production cuts from Saudi Arabia are weighing on the market as well, according to Reuters.

A barrel of the European reference oil, Brent, costs USD 78.00 on Monday morning compared to USD 77.66 on Friday afternoon. At the same time, US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) oil is trading at USD 73.40 compared to USD 72.98 on Friday.

”Oil traders may be cautious ahead of the US CPI and China’s slew of economic data later this week,” says Tina Teng, analyst at CMC Markets, according to Reuters.

Teng adds that oil prices could increase after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies, OPEC+, announced intentions to cut oil production further.

Oil prices rose by more than 4% last week, reaching the highest level since May. Prices thus rose for the second consecutive week on announcements of continued production cuts in August from Saudi Arabia and Russia.

Saudi Arabia will extend the cuts of 1 million barrels per day into August, while Russia will export 500,000 barrels less per day.

According to Mukesh Sahdev, senior vice president at Rystad Energy, the stability of the oil market is affected by a continued tug-of-war between fears of Western economies’ demand control on the one hand and OPEC’s strategies to control supply on the other, Reuters reports.