published Apr 7th 2016, 6:15 pm, by James Paton

(Bloomberg) —
Oil reversed losses amid speculation about whether an accord can be reached at a meeting between OPEC members and Russia on freezing oil production.

Futures rose as much as 1.2 percent in New York after slipping 1.3 percent Thursday. The meeting is set to take place April 17 in Doha to discuss freezing output to stabilize the markets. Saudi Arabia has said it will only agree if it’s joined by other suppliers including Iran, while Kuwait said a deal can be done without Iran’s support.

West Texas Intermediate climbed as much as 43 cents to $37.69 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange and was at $37.59 at 8:57 a.m. Sydney time. The contract dropped 49 cents to $37.26 on Thursday. Total volume traded was about 44 percent below the 100-day average.

Brent for June settlement lost 41 cents, or 1 percent, to $39.43 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange on Thursday. The front-month contract’s discount to the second-month slipped to 6 cents at the end of the session. The global benchmark crude closed at a 94-cent premium to WTI for June delivery.

To contact the reporter on this story: James Paton in Sydney at jpaton4@bloomberg.net To contact the editors responsible for this story: Ramsey Al-Rikabi at ralrikabi@bloomberg.net Aaron Clark, Andrew Hobbs

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