Crude-oil prices rose above $60 a barrel Friday after an attack Wednesday on a facility in Nigeria and Qatar's oil minister said OPEC may consider oil production cuts at its next meeting.

In midafternoon trading in New York, light sweet crude for January delivery rose 94 cents to $60.12 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Brent crude rose 75 cents to $60.10 on the ICE Futures exchange in London.

In other Nymex trading, heating oil was up 2.68 cents to $1.7050 per gallon, unleaded gasoline rose 1.43 cent to $1.5945, and natural gas rose 19 cents to $7.93 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Seven foreign oil workers were taken hostage Wednesday from an Italian oil ship off Nigeria's southern coast, the latest in a string of hostage takings and attacks on Nigeria's oil industry which have cut production by 25 percent since the beginning of the year. A British man was killed along with two kidnappers and a soldier as the other six hostages were freed by the Nigerian Navy, according to the Italian oil company involved, Eni SpA.

Qatar's oil minister said Friday that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries may consider cutting oil output at its next meeting in Abuja, Nigeria, on Dec. 14, Dow Jones Newswires reported.

Oil prices were still adjusting to Wednesday's weekly U.S. petroleum report that said crude-oil inventories swelled by 5.1 million barrels last week to 341.1 million barrels, or 6 percent above year-ago levels.

The nation's gasoline stocks grew by 1.4 million barrels to 201.7 million barrels after a drop in refinery activity, leaving them less than 1 percent below year-ago levels. The supply of distillate fuel, which includes heating oil and diesel, is slightly above year-ago levels even after a 1.2 million barrel decline that left inventories at 133.8 million barrels.

A separate report by the agency showed the nation's inventory of natural gas declining by 1 billion cubic feet, but at 3.45 trillion cubic feet, the amount of fuel in underground storage is still 7.5 percent above year-ago levels.

Oil prices have fallen by about 23 percent since hitting an all-time trading high above $78 a barrel in mid-July. They haven't settled above $62 a barrel since Oct. 1, despite the OPEC's announcement in mid-October that it would reduce output by 1.2 million barrels a day.

Skepticism that OPEC members are committing to production cuts, as well as milder-than-normal U.S. temperatures this fall, have moderated prices.