Oil prices manage soft rebound after Thursday's slump

May 26 (UPI) -- Crude oil prices staged a soft recovery in early Friday trading as better-than-expected growth in the U.S. economy brought some players back to the table.

Parties to an agreement steered by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to sideline about 1.8 million barrels of oil per day left the arrangement stand as is, opting to extend the current program into March 2018, instead of year-end 2017 as originally planned.

Possible scenarios ranging from deeper cuts to a full-year extension had supported some bullish sentiments early in the trading week, though that mood vanished after Thursday's meeting in Vienna yielded no surprises.

A report published late Thursday by Morgan Stanley said the decision will lead to further declines in crude oil inventories through the second and third quarter, a situation that would support higher crude oil prices. That, however, could be offset by any corresponding gains in U.S. shale oil production.

"When this agreement ends, and coincides with strong shale growth, the market looks oversupplied again," the report read. "This has become our expectation for 2018, and we lower price forecasts as a result."

Crude oil prices were down more than 1 percent in overnight trading, but recovered somewhat after a report on first quarter gross domestic from the United States came in better than earlier forecasts.

The price for Brent crude oil was up a fraction of a percent in the moments before the start of the trading day in New York to $51.50 per barrel. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. benchmark for the price of oil, was up 0.16 percent to $48.98. Both benchmarks lost up to 5 percent in the previous session.

The U.S. Commerce Department reported first-quarter GDP grew by 1.2 percent for an annual rate, stronger than the previous estimate of 0.7 percent. The improved growth rate, however, was still sluggish by historical standards and compares with 2.1 percent growth for GDP during the fourth quarter.

The slow growth follows a report last week from the Federal Reserve Bank of New York that found household debt was $50 billion above a previous record set in the third quarter of 2008 during the latest recession. The number of consumers classified as seriously delinquent on credit card debt increased from 7.1 percent in the fourth quarter to 7.5 percent in the first quarter of 2017.

Meetings released Wednesday from the U.S. Federal Reserve found economists were monitoring economic indicators that "were weaker than anticipated."