"We are encouraged by the President’s strong diplomacy with Saudi Arabia and Russia, and we are optimistic further progress will be made in the days ahead. No one wins in a price war, and the Saudis and the Russians aren’t benefiting from their decisions. We also urged the administration to avoid U.S. policies that could do more harm than good for American producers.

OPEC has been open to counting natural production declines in its output cut agreements, but there is no indication the US would be willing to sign up to that, and some delegates say Russia might not agree such a dressed-up US cut anyway.

Brent crude oil prices averaged $32/barrel (b) in March, a decrease of $24/b from the average in February and the lowest monthly average since January 2016.

The dollar’s rise came as global stocks wavered after two days of gains as deaths from the coronavirus mounted across the globe. The rising toll soured U.S. markets late on Tuesday, with pessimism spreading to Asian indexes a day later.

The emergency declaration gives the governors of Tokyo and six other selected prefectures -- Kanagawa, Chiba, Saitama, Fukuoka, Hyogo and Osaka -- legal backing to ask the public to stay home.

The government of Kuwait plans to increase its oil production in April 2020, with an objective of 3.15 mb/d, up from an average production 2.69 mb/d in 2019 (2.74 mb/d in 2018).

In Germany, renewable energies accounted for nearly 52% of the power mix in the first three months of 2020. In Spain, renewables contributed by nearly 45% of the total power generation in mainland Spain in the first quarter of 2020.

ExxonMobil capital investments for 2020 are now expected to be about $23 billion, down from the previously announced $33 billion.

Brent was up by 80 cents, or 2.4%, at $33.85 a barrel, WTI was up by 83 cents, or 3.2%, at $26.91 a barrel

Asia's markets in Seoul, Shanghai and Hong Kong opened higher, then pared gains.