Investing.com - Oil prices rose sharply during European hours on Thursday, extending strong overnight gains as market players awaited fresh weekly information on U.S. stockpiles of crude and refined products.
Crude oil for October delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange was up 92 cents, or 2.02%, at $46.42 a barrel by 4:03AM ET (08:03GMT). A day earlier, New York-traded oil futures gained 67 cents, or 1.49%.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration will release its weekly report on oil supplies at 11:00AM ET (15:00GMT) amid analyst expectations for an increase of 225,000 barrels.
Gasoline inventories are expected to decline by 171,000 barrels while stocks of distillates, which include heating oil and diesel, are forecast to rise by 684,000 barrels.
The EIA data comes out one day later than usual due to Monday's Labor Day holiday.
After markets closed Wednesday, the American Petroleum Institute said that U.S. oil inventories plunged by a whopping 12.1 million barrels in the week ended September 2.
If Thursday's government report shows a similar drop, it would be the largest one-week fall in stocks since April 1985.
The API report also showed a decline of 2.3 million barrels in gasoline stocks, while distillates showed a rise of 944,000 barrels on the week.
Elsewhere, on the ICE Futures Exchange in London, Brent oil for November delivery tacked on 81 cents, or 1.7%, to trade at $48.79 a barrel. London-traded Brent futures added 72 cents, or 1.52%, on Wednesday.
Oil traders continued to weigh prospects that major oil producing nations will freeze output to support the market when they meet later this month.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, led by Saudi Arabia and other big Middle East crude exporters, will meet non-OPEC producers led by Russia at informal talks in Algeria between September 26 and 28.
Brent spiked sharply on Monday after Saudi Arabia and Russia pledged to work together to support the market. But prices have since fallen back as the agreement stopped short of delivering imminent action to tackle a supply glut.
Chances that the upcoming meeting would yield any action to reduce the global glut appeared minimal, according to market experts. Instead, most believe that oil producers will continue to monitor the market and possibly postpone freeze talks to the official OPEC meeting in Vienna on November 30.
An attempt to jointly freeze production levels earlier this year failed after Saudi Arabia backed out over Iran's refusal to take part of the initiative, underscoring the difficulty for political rivals to forge consensus.