West Texas Intermediate futures for March delivery rallied to $30.74 (+4.42%), while Brent crude jumped to $34.70 (+3.92%) amid hopes for cooperation between producers. Anonymous sources said Saudi Arabia's oil minister Ali Al Naimi will meet Russia's Alexander Novak in Qatar later today. The agenda of the meeting is unknown.

Public finances in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries suffered severely, which raises expectations for a deal between producers.

However some analysts are skeptical about output cuts. "We continue to believe that if prices were to be artificially supported with production cuts it would only give more expensive forms of production more room to breathe and would only solve the problem in the short term," Phillip Futures said.