Oil Advances Near $45 as OPEC May Hold Formal Meeting in Algiers

Firm import data from Japan also supported prices, traders said.

Maduro, an oil price hawk held “positive discussions” with fellow members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries who attended the Summit of the Non-Aligned Movement, in which 15 heads of state gathered in the South American country.

Diverging from the API, a Bloomberg survey shows USA crude stockpiles probably increased by 3.25 million barrels last week.

“We continue to assume no material difference between the prices of WTI and Brent oil, based on both the feasibility of USA crude oil exports and our observation of this spread being generally much less than $2.5 per barrel in the year to date”, S&P said.

“But in the event their number falls short of what the market’s expecting, or turns out to be a draw like the API’s, then in the least we can expect higher prices for oil despite the oversupplied situation we are in”, Kilduff said.

The US crude stockpiles probably increased by 3.25 million barrels last week, according to a Bloomberg survey before an Energy Information Administration report on Wednesday.

US West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were up 1.8 per cent, or 81 cents, at $44.86 a barrel at 0403 GMT.

Market participants had expected an increase of 3.4 million barrels, according to a Reuters poll.

“All expectations are that EIA will still report a stockpile build tomorrow for USA crude”, said John Kilduff, partner at NY energy hedge fund Again Capital.

USA gasoline futures tumbled 4 per cent after Colonial Pipeline Co said it expects to restart its main 1.3 million barrel per day gasoline line on Wednesday after being shut for more than a week to fix the biggest leak in almost two decades.

At the Multi Commodity Exchange, crude oil for delivery in October fell Rs 19, or 0.64 per cent, to Rs 2,941 per barrel in 4,305 lots.

Oil prices fell on Tuesday after Venezuela said that global crude supplies needed to fall by 10 percent in order to bring production down to consumption levels, confirming analyst views that markets remain heavily oversupplied.

“Even if an agreement to freeze production is reached, this will change very little for the global oil market, given that most Opec members are already producing close to their peak capacity”.

Oil producers are to meet on the sidelines of an industry conference in Algeria next week for talks on potentially freezing oil production, ahead of OPEC’s all-important policy meeting in November.