Oil prices spike on output meeting

Brent crude futures finished up 88 cents, or 2.6 percent, at $35.29 a barrel, hitting a three-week high.

At around 0635 GMT, the US benchmark West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for delivery in April fell four cents cents to $32.11.

Free of sanctions, Iran plans to increase its oil export by 500,000 barrels per day, and then raise the figure by another 500,000 to two million barrels per day in a six-month period at the next step.

Official data earlier in the week put inventories for the entire USA at all-time highs of over 507m barrels.

Persian Gulf Arab states like Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Kuwait “can make lots of money” with oil prices in the range of $20 to $30 a barrel, said Tim Weller, the chief financial officer of U.K. oil-services provider Petrofac Ltd.in a separate a conference call Wednesday.

The minister also blamed the current price slump on widespread industry investments, which were in turn supposedly prompted by years of triple digit oil: “This went from the Arctic, to Canadian oil sands, to Venezuela’s Orinoco tar sands, to deep water frontiers; it also led to the development of shale oil resources in some parts of the U.S”.

The rise in USA stockpiles is mirrored around the globe.

This mismatch between ample supplies and tepid demand has driven oil prices down by around 70% since the summer of 2014. “Last year, global oil demand grew by twice its 10-year average”, he said.

US oil output has stayed above 9 million barrels a day in recent months, despite a fall in drilling activity. Oil supply is outstripping demand by a million barrels a day.

“We would argue that the numbers are starting to show more credible evidence that the low prices are really starting to bite”, consultant JBC Energy said in a note.

“The idea that gasoline demand is actually rising suggests that perhaps the lower prices of crude are actually prompting a greater usage of this product (gasoline)”, said Vyanne Lai, oil analyst at National Australia Bank.

Nymex reformulated gasoline blendstock-the benchmark gasoline contract-fell 0.8% to $1.27 a gallon.