NEW YORK, April 19 (Xinhua) -- Oil prices climbed on Monday, building on the gains they scored in the prior week.

The West Texas Intermediate for May delivery added 25 cents to settle at 63.38 U.S. dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude for June delivery increased 28 cents to close at 67.05 dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.

The above moves followed a solid week on the oil market, which saw the U.S. crude benchmark and Brent surged 6.4 percent and 6.1 percent, respectively.

"Ever since the IEA raised its demand forecast (considerably) last week, the oil market has been concentrating on the strong recovery expected in the second half of the year and ignoring the current risks to demand," Eugen Weinberg, energy analyst at Commerzbank Research, said in a note on Monday.

"In addition, the underlying sentiment on the financial markets is positive overall thanks to the good economic data in the U.S. and China, and the U.S. dollar is weaker," he said.

The dollar index, which measures the greenback against six major peers, fell 0.53 percent to 91.0709 in late trading on Monday. Historically, the price of oil is inversely related to the price of the U.S. dollar.

In its monthly report released last week, the International Energy Agency (IEA) confirmed and strengthened the expectation of stronger demand growth despite the pandemic. It upwardly revised its forecast for global oil demand in 2021 by 230,000 barrels a day. Enditem

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