Oil prices rose 1 percent on Monday after Venezuela hinted that OPEC members and other major oil producers could agree to a deal to freeze output, and as clashes in Libya disrupted attempts to restart crude exports from key ports.
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US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures CLc1 were up 1.79 percent, or 79 cents, at $44.84 a barrel at 0027 GMT, buoyed by a contractual rollover into higher-demand November as a front-month.
Prices rose after the American Petroleum Institute, an industry group, said late Tuesday that US crude stockpiles fell by 7.5-million barrels last week. However, Brent crude futures on ICE Exchange remained under red, trading down 0.22% at $45.73 a barrel. Weak retail, industrial and inflation data for August have recently undermined confidence in the US economy and likely pushed the Fed to err on the side of caution.
USA crude stockpiles likely rose 2.3 million barrels last week, analysts forecast in a Reuters poll.
“We are still very well supplied for this time of year”, Tariq Zahir, trader in crude oil spreads at Tyche Capital Advisors in NY, said referring to total USA crude stocks that stood at record seasonal peaks of almost 505 million barrels.
“Maduro said on Sunday that OPEC and non-OPEC countries were close to reaching an agreement to stabilize the price, and these comments have led traders to speculate that we could see a production freeze announced next week”, David Cheetham of brokerage XTB said.
Meanwhile, according to Algerian Energy Minister Noureddine Bouterfa, OPEC members may opt to hold an extraordinary meeting to talk about oil prices immediately after the informal conference next week.
Oil climbed near $45 a barrel after Algeria said Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) may turn its informal talks next week into a formal session and as weekly industry data showed United States crude inventories declined.
He has said the Algiers meeting was for consultations and not decision-making.
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Non-OPEC members have also been raising production, with Russian Federation achieving record highs of above 11 million barrels per day. “Political tensions will prevent cohesion, and individual members will continue to protect market share from resilient non-OPEC producers”. The API report pushed oil prices up, offsetting the news of renewed Libyan oil exports from the port of Ras Lanuf and Nigeria’s plans to start ramping up its oil production.
