U.S. President Donald Trump's withdrawal from the Paris agreement, the landmark 2015 global pact to fight climate change, drew condemnation from Washington's allies and many in the energy industry - and sparked fears that U.S. oil production could expand more rapidly than it is currently.

“Trump seems to be removing any barriers he can find that would obstruct growth of crude oil or natural gas,” said Stewart Glickman, energy equity analyst at CFRA in New York.

"It’s kind of ironic because by doing that you’re encouraging more volumes to come out of the ground."

U.S. drillers have so far added rigs for 19 straight weeks and the market was waiting for this week's data from service company Baker Hughes after 1 p.m. to see if they have extended the year-long recovery.

U.S. crude production as of last week was up by nearly 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) from year-earlier levels, straining efforts from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries to reduce global oversupply.

U.S. production hit 9.34 million bpd last week, highest since August 2015. Overall, U.S. carbon emissions have been declining for several years, last year falling to levels not seen since 1992, in part as increased natural gas usage has displaced dirtier coal.

Transportation-related emissions - mostly gasoline - have been rising, however.

U.S. oil output is expected to keep rising, as the U.S. Energy Information Administration forecasts production of about 10 million barrels a day in 2018.

Igor Sechin, chief of Russia's largest oil producer, Rosneft, said U.S. producers could add up to 1.5 million bpd to world oil output next year.

Last week OPEC and a number of non-OPEC producers extended a deal to cut 1.8 million bpd in supply until March 2018. Oil prices are down around 10 percent since the decision, and OPEC officials have since suggested they may deepen the cuts.

Investors have been edgy due to the slow decline in inventories worldwide. U.S. inventories, however, fell 6.4 million barrels last week, their eighth straight weekly drawdown. "That's relatively higher than the average draws we’ve seen, so you would have thought that crude would have fared a little better," said CFRA's Glickman.

(Additional reporting by Libby George and Sabina Zawadzki in London and Jane Chung in Seoul; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Adrian Croft)