Bloomberg Hedge funds are giving OPEC some credit again. Following four weeks of growing pessimism, bets on rising West Texas Intermediate prices jumped the most this year just as Saudi Arabia and Russia were mustering support for the deal they struck in Vienna last week, US Commodity Futures Trading Commission data show. What happens to US stockpiles will be key …

Bloomberg Oil traded below $50 a barrel after OPEC underwhelmed investors with its production-cut extension deal. Futures fell 0.2 percent in New York. Prices closed 1.1 percent lower last week after OPEC agreed to extend limits on crude output through the first quarter of 2018. Saudi Arabia’s Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih said the oil-cuts strategy is working and that global …

LARNACA / Reuters Iraq may look at hedging part of its crude oil production, the head of the OPEC member’s oil marketer SOMO said, as a way to protect government revenue against the risk of oil price volatility. “It is in our strategy in the future that maybe we will consider hedging part of Iraqi crude … SOMO is floating …