Oil Producers To Meet In April To Hash Out Production Deal

OPEC and non-OPEC oil producers plan an April 17 meeting in Doha, Qatar, to work out a deal on oil production, according to a Dow Jones Newswires report citing Persian Gulf sources. This Doha effort is meant to stabilize the oil market, and the producers supporting it account for 73% of global crude output, the DJN report on Wednesday said. The April meeting will go ahead even without Iran, a Reuters report said. Officials from the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries also said it was hard to backtrack from a preliminary deal to freeze output after Iran said it would not join, Reuters noted. Crude for April delivery [s:clj6] recently traded up by 62 cents, or 1.7%, at $36.96 a barrel, while May Brent crude gained 49 cents, or 1.3%, at $39.23 a barrel.