Investing.com - Oil prices were higher on Tuesday, bouncing back from three sessions of declines triggered by pessimism around global growth, as investors shifted their focus back to OPEC supply cuts and expectations of lower U.S. inventories.
“It appears that concerns about demand have taken something of a back seat,” Commerzbank (DE:CBKG) analyst Carsten Fritsch said. “Instead, market participants are focusing on the tight supply situation again.”
OPEC, which together with some non-affiliated producers like Russia, known as 'OPEC+', agreed late last year to reduce output by 1.2 million barrels per day (bpd) to remove a glut and prop up prices.
Further price support came from another power cut in Venezuela, the second to hit the OPEC nation this month, which further dented its ability to export.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures jumped $1.35, or around 2.3%, to $60.19 a barrel by 8:40AM ET (12:40 GMT), within sight of a four-month peak of $60.39 reached last week.
Elsewhere, Brent oil rose 86 cents, or about 1.3%, to $67.67 a barrel.
Oil prices had been hammered on Friday as part of a general sell-off in global markets on concerns about slowing global growth. While the economic data hasn't improved since then, the market seems at least to have absorbed the shock.
Market players are now looking ahead to the release of fresh weekly data on U.S. commercial crude inventories.
The American Petroleum Institute is due to release its weekly report for the week ended March 22 at 4:30PM ET (20:30 GMT), amid expectations of a decline of about 2.4 million barrels.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration's weekly report will be released on Wednesday.
In other energy trading, gasoline futures gained 1.2% to $1.913 a gallon, while heating oil ticked up 0.8% at $1.997 a gallon.
Natural gas futures dipped 0.3% to $2.764 per million British thermal units.
-- Reuters contributed to this report