Canada's Imperial Oil posts smaller quarterly loss

North American oil producers are slowly gaining from a jump in global crude prices as an OPEC-led production cut and a rebound in demand slowly erode a global glut.

The company said crude oil prices jumped 43.2 percent to C$51.62 per barrel compared to the year-ago period. The company sold bitumen from its Canadian oil sands projects for C$38.22 per barrel compared with C$29.45 per barrel.

Imperial Oil, majority owned by Exxon Mobil Corp, said gross production rose slightly to 331,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) in the reported quarter, compared with 329,000 boepd last year.

The company posted a net loss of C$77 million ($61.42 million), or 9 Canadian cents per share, in the quarter ended June 30, from C$181 million, or 21 Canadian cents, a year earlier.

Revenue rose 12.6 percent to C$7.03 billion.

($1 = 1.2536 Canadian dollars)

(Reporting by Anirban Paul in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur and Shounak Dasgupta)