By Christian Schmollinger
Dec. 3 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil rebounded from the lowest price in more than three years as equities gained and traders bought contracts to close out bets that prices will fall.
Asian stocks rose for the first time in three days, following gains on Wall Street, as central banks took steps to contain the global recession with the Federal Reserve extending an emergency loan program and the Bank of Japan easing terms on lending to banks. OPEC intends to cut output when it meets on Dec. 17 in Algeria, Qatar's Oil Minister Abdullah bin Hamad al- Attiyah said today.
``It's still a case of the oil market looking to equities for some gauge as to how the global demand outlook is appearing,'' said Toby Hassall, an analyst at Commodity Warrants Australia in Sydney. ``The recession call was seen as a negative for the market on Monday, but that possibly suggests that we're closer to coming out of the recession than people are thinking, and that could be seen as a positive.''
Crude oil for January delivery rose as much as $1.14, or 2.4 percent, to $48.10 a barrel in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange, and traded at $47.67 a barrel at 3:59 p.m. Singapore time.
Yesterday, futures fell $2.32, or 4.7 percent, to $46.96 a barrel, the lowest settlement since May 20, 2005. Oil has tumbled 68 percent from a record $147.27 a barrel reached on July 11. Oil is set to decline 50 percent this year, snapping six years of gains.
U.S. gasoline purchases last week rose from the previous week by 1.7 percent, MasterCard Inc. said in its SpendingPulse report. That is still down 0.3 percent from a year earlier.
OPEC `Definitely' to Cut
OPEC, supplier of more than 40 percent of the world's oil, will ``definitely'' cut output at its next meeting in Algeria on Dec. 17 after postponing a decision last month, Qatar's al- Attiyah said in Dubai today.
He added that he doesn't know by how much the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries would reduce output. The group also wants crude oil prices at between $70 and $80 a barrel ``because this is the range at which you can invest.''
The group deferred a decision to cut output at a meeting on Nov. 29 in Cairo. OPEC agreed on Oct. 24 to cut shipments by 1.5 million barrels a day.
Abu Dhabi National Oil Co., the state-owned producer for OPEC's fourth largest supplier, told refiners in Asia yesterday that it would supply the full amounts under long-term contracts.
U.S. Recession
The U.S. is facing its longest economic slump since World War II, said the National Bureau of Economic Research, a private non-profit group of economists based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
``The demand isn't going to get any stronger in the near- term,'' said Commodity Warrants Hassall. ``We have to get a sense of how deep the recession is going to be in the U.S.''
U.S. crude inventories probably gained for a 10th week as demand continues to plummet in the world's largest energy user, according to a Bloomberg survey before the Department of Energy releases its weekly report.
A U.S. Energy Department report today will show that crude- oil supplies rose 1 million barrels last week, according to the median of 13 responses in a Bloomberg News survey. It would be the 10th consecutive weekly gain. Stockpiles of gasoline and distillate fuel, a category that includes heating oil and diesel, also rose, according to the survey.
Brent crude oil for January settlement gained as much as $1.15, or 2.5 percent, to $46.59 a barrel on London's ICE Futures Europe exchange. It was at $46 a barrel at 4:04 p.m. Singapore time. The contract declined $2.53, or 5.3 percent, to $45.44 a barrel yesterday, the lowest settlement since Feb. 15, 2005.
To contact the reporter on this story: Christian Schmollinger in Singapore at christian.s@bloomberg.net.
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