NEW YORK (MarketWatch) -- Crude-oil futures moved higher Monday as traders played off news that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries could cut its production further, on the heels of a reduction of 2.2 million barrels a day that cartel members agreed to last week. Crude for February delivery was last up 28 cents, or 0.7%, at $42.64 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It rose to $43.44 earlier. OPEC President Chakib Khelil said on Sunday that OPEC's willing to further reduce output as much as necessary to stabilize oil prices, the Associated Press reported. The cartel, which controls about 40% of the world's oil production, agreed at a meeting in Algeria last week to reduce members' quotas by 2.2 million barrels a day starting in January. The cut, however, failed to prevent oil's slide. Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali Naimi on Friday had repeated previous assertions that $75 was a "fair and reasonable" price for a barrel of oil. Naimi said the steep fall in prices is causing "havoc" with investment plans in oil-producing countries and jeopardizes future supplies, according to a Reuters report. How low oil prices could go "depends in large part on OPEC's efforts to rein back output," wrote Edward Meir, an analyst at MF Global. "Should the cartel get its act together, we could be close to bottoming out by the end of January." "In the meantime, prices could remain under further pressure," he added. China imports slow Crude imports in China, the world second-largest oil consumer, fell to their lowest level this year, the General Administration of Customs said on Monday. The country imported 13.36 million tons of crude in the last month, or 3.25 million barrels a day, down 1.9% from a year ago. To bolster the economy, China's central bank said Monday it will cut its key lending and deposit rates by 0.27 percentage points each from Tuesday. The move follows rate cuts by the Bank of Japan and the U.S. Federal Reserve last week. In Japan, the No. 3 oil consumer, crude imports fell 17% in November from a year ago, the Ministry of Finance said Monday. Toyota Motor Corp. on Monday forecast an operating loss for the current year, the first in the automaker's history since the Second World War. See full story. Total petroleum products supplies in the United States, the world's biggest oil consumer, stood at 19.6 million barrels a day in the four weeks ended last week, down nearly 5% from a year ago, the Energy Information Administration reported last week. U.S. crude inventories rose to 321 million barrels last week, the highest in seven months. Stocks at Cushing, Okla. -- home of the delivery point for the crude contract used by the New York Mercantile Exchange -- climbed 4.7 million barrels for the week ended Dec. 12, to 27.5 million barrels, the EIA reported. This marked the highest level since April 2007. In other energy trading, January reformulated gasoline gained 0.4% to 97.35 cents a gallon and January heating oil rose 0.9% to $1.4042 a gallon. January natural-gas futures fell 0.7% to $5.295 per million British thermal units.

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