Oil price up after Russia says open to talk with OPEC

PanARMENIAN.Net - The price of oil rose on Wednesday, Feb 3, paring earlier losses after fresh comments from Russia about its openness to talk with OPEC over output cuts helped revive hope among investors that the world's largest producers could act to boost prices, Reuters reports.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said if there is consensus among the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and non-OPEC members to meet, "then we will meet".

This helped push the price of oil, which had been set for a third day of declines after data on Tuesday showed another big build in U.S. inventories, off the day's lows.

Brent for April delivery LCOc1 rose 40 cents to $33.12 a barrel by 4.30 a.m. ET, pulling away from a session low of $32.30. U.S. crude futures rose 46 cents to $30.34, off a session low of $29.40.

"Is there going to be a meeting between Russia and OPEC? That is a supportive factor in this rally that we’ve seen in the last one hour," PVM Oil Associates analyst Tamas Varga said. "(Oil-producing) countries are at the brink of default ... so the situation is dire."

Cash-strapped Nigeria and Angola are discussing potential financing from the World Bank, which, together with the International Monetary Fund, is in talks with Azerbaijan.

The 70 percent drop in the crude price over the last 18 months has hit the budgets of oil-dependent nations such as Nigeria, Venezuela, Russia and even some of the richer Gulf nations such as Bahrain.

Demand for oil, particularly in Asia, proved robust last year, but not enough to absorb near-record supply and ballooning inventories of unwanted crude.

U.S. crude stocks rose by 3.8 million barrels to 500.4 million in the week to Jan 29, data from the American Petroleum Institute showed.