U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures CLc1 were up 1.93 percent, or 85 cents, at $44.90 a barrel at 0644 GMT (02:44 a.m. EDT).
Advertisement
Oil prices fell to a one-month low on Friday and finished down around $43 a barrel for the second time in three weeks while there was increasing output from OPEC, new pledges of increased production from several countries and a shutdown of a major USA gasoline pipeline continued pushing down prices.
Oil prices rose in Asia Wednesday as traders awaited the release of United States energy stockpiles data and a U.S. central bank decision on interest rates.
A militant group on Monday claimed an attack on a crude oil pipeline in Delta state, southern Nigeria, in the second attack on the same line in less than a week.
“OPEC members will not agree on a production freeze at the end of September at the meeting in Algiers”. OPEC members and Russian Federation failed to agree at a meeting in Doha in April to limit production after Iran declined to attend and Saudi Arabia refused to proceed without all of the OPEC states participating.
“Therefore, we suggest that the Algiers informal meeting leads to an extraordinary meeting in order to take decisions” likely to stabilize oil price, OPEC SG said.
A build in US oil production from shale in part led to a fall from $100 per barrel in late 2014.
Oil traders are closely monitoring the situation in the north African country, where current production stands at about 300,000 barrels per day.
Libya is aiming to return output to levels last seen in 2011, when Moammar Gadhafi was ousted. The IEA reduced growth estimates for this year by 100,000 barrels a day to 1.3 million a day, citing a deceleration in China and India this quarter coupled with vanishing growth in developed economies. Since then, a cavalcade of comments, opinions, and seemingly off the cuff remarks from OPEC officials and oil ministers have fueled market speculation about the possibility of a production freeze.
Firstly, the biggest oil-exporting countries are all producing near record levels.
“The agency’s Sec Gen appears to be sending off signals that the talks will be informal and unlikely to result in a decision to restrain output”, said Jim Ritterbusch of Chicago-based oil markets consultancy Ritterbusch & Associates.
In Libya, turmoil helped push up oil prices Monday. But prices ended well off the highs amid skepticism over whether such a deal can be agreed upon.
Oil prices edged lower on September 20 ahead of an expected build in USA crude oil stocks and on Venezuelan comments that the oil market remains oversupplied by 10%.
Advertisement
“This is indicative of the unpredictability of Libyan oil production because the fighting means that we don t know how sustained their output can be”, he added.
