Investing.com - Oil prices were sharply higher during European hours on Wednesday, after falling to a six-week low overnight, as market players awaited fresh weekly information on U.S. stockpiles of crude and refined products.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration will release its weekly report on oil supplies at 10:30AM ET (14:30GMT) amid analyst expectations for an increase of 3.4 million barrels.
Gasoline inventories are expected to fall by 567,000 barrels while stocks of distillates, which include heating oil and diesel, are forecast to rise by 250,000 barrels.
After markets closed Tuesday, the American Petroleum Institute said that U.S. oil inventories fell by a whopping 7.5 million barrels in the week ended September 16. The API report also showed a decline of 2.5 million barrels in gasoline stocks, while distillates showed a rise of 1.4 million barrels on the week.
Crude oil for November delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange surged 93 cents, or 2.1%, to $44.98 a barrel by 3:50AM ET (07:50GMT). The contract touched a six-week low of $43.06 on Tuesday amid lingering concerns over a global supply glut.
Elsewhere, on the ICE Futures Exchange in London, Brent oil for November delivery tacked on 80 cents, or 1.75%, to trade at $46.68 a barrel, moving away from the prior session's six-week low of $45.09.
Oil traders continued to weigh prospects that major oil producing nations will freeze output to support the market when they meet next week.
OPEC members, 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.
According to market experts, chances that the meeting would yield any action to reduce the global glut appeared minimal. 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.
The market is also waiting for the outcome of the Federal Reserve meeting later in the day for further trading cues.
The Bank of Japan kept rates unchanged at -0.1% following its latest meeting and announced that it would modify its policy framework, marking the latest attempt to boost inflation.
Among the changes, the BOJ said it would introduce yield curve controls, eliminate the maturity range of its bond purchases and abandon its monetary base targets.