LONDON: Brent crude reversed early losses to rise back towards $80 a barrel on Tuesday, recovering from a four-year low hit last week as oil prices tried to find a floor ahead of next week's critical OPEC meeting.
Speculation about OPEC's response to a 30 percent drop in global oil prices since late-June intensified after calls from Venezuela to increase cooperation within the cartel as well as with non-members, including top producer Russia.
A special global meeting is being planned "very soon", Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said on Monday. The head of state-backed oil giant Rosneft will fly to Vienna on Nov. 25, just two days before OPEC members meet in the city. "We don't expect a sharp rebound in prices unless we get positive news about a production cut," said Ken Hasegawa, commodity sales manager of Newedge Japan.
Brent was up 31 cents at $79.62 a barrel by 0923 GMT, recovering from an early drop to an intraday low of $78.85.
The front-month contract settled 10 cents lower on Monday and has dropped more than a third from this year's high of $115.71 in June, touching a four-year low of $76.76 last week.
US crude was up 60 cents at $76.24 a barrel.
The contract settled 18 cents lower on Monday. Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak on Monday met with Venezuela's foreign minister, Rafael Ramirez, to discuss "the need to coordinate actions in defence" of prices in the oil market.
Previous overtures between OPEC and Russia have not produced results. "With prices below $80, the market should not rule out an OPEC cut," London-based consultancy Energy Aspects said.
Speculation about the OPEC meeting is expected to overshadow the usually closely watched weekly oil inventory data published by the US Energy Information Administration (EIA).
US commercial crude oil stockpiles are forecast to have fallen by 1.2 million barrels in the week ended Nov. 14, a preliminary Reuters survey showed. Data from the American Petroleum Institute (API) is due at 2130 GMT, while the EIA will publish its report on Wednesday.
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