Crude oil surges, posts biggest monthly rise in last 2 months

Crude oil prices surged to two-month high on Monday, ending the strongest month of the year for crude features, boosted in part by expectations of U.S. sanctions against Venezuela's oil sector.

Benchmark Brent crude rose 0.3 percent to settle at $52.65. Brent earlier hit $52.92 a barrel, its highest since May 25. U.S. while light crude oil rose nearly 1 percent to settle at $50.17 a barrel.

According to records OPEC and non-OPEC members are scheduled to meet on Aug. 7-8 in Abu Dhabi to assess how the group can increase compliance with production cuts.

According to a Reuters survey on Monday indicated that the output from OPEC members rose, with June production revised up by 200,000 bpd.

In Europe, a production outage at Royal Dutch Shell Plc's 404,000 barrel-per-day Pernis refinery in the Netherlands following a fire sent benchmark European diesel margins to their highest since November 2015.

The Brent front-month spread rallied to the strongest in 15 months, ahead of the September contract's expiry.

The strength in Brent prices pushed WTI-Brent spread to the widest since March 28. The spread settled at a discount of $2.48 a barrel.

U.S. crude inventories have fallen by 10 percent from their March peaks to 483.4 million barrels.

Drilling for new U.S. production is slowing, with just 10 rigs added in July.