* Outages in North Sea, West Africa lifts Brent
* Both WTI, Brent crude futures back above $40 per barrel
By Henning Gloystein
SINGAPORE, April 11 (Reuters) - Oil futures on Monday
extended sharp rises from the end of last week following a
decline in U.S. inventories and drilling, while outages and
hopes that exporters could freeze output boosted international
prices.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures CLc1 were
trading at $40.17 per barrel at 0002 GMT, up 45 cents or 1.1
percent from their last close.
International Brent crude futures LCOc1 were up 35 cents
or 0.8 percent at $42.29 a barrel.
U.S. energy firms cut oil rigs for a third week in a row to
the lowest level since November 2009, oil services company Baker
Hughes Inc BHI.N said Friday, as energy firms keep slashing
spending despite crude futures prices jumping roughly 50 percent
since hitting a near 13-year low in February.
Drillers cut 8 oil rigs in the week to April 8, bringing the
total rig count down to 354, Baker Hughes said in its closely
followed report.
U.S. prices had previously been supported by a drop in U.S.
crude stocks, albeit from all-time highs.
Brent was lifted by production outages in the North Sea and
West Africa, as well as by hopes that a meeting of exporters
planned for April 17 would result lead to an agreement to rein
in ballooning overpoduction that sees at least 1 million barrels
per day pumped in excess of demand.
With both benchmarks back above $40 per barrel, analysts
said that more investors could be attracted if prices now
breached highs reached in March, when Brent rose above $42.50
and WTI rose to $41.90 per barrel.
"Crude oil prices are back to or near the March high and a
significant resistance point. If oil prices can break above this
level, investor sentiment towards commodities should receive a
further boost," ANZ bank said on Monday.
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Graphic on U.S. rig counts http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/15/rigcount/index.html
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(Editing by Richard Pullin)