By Samantha Sunne
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Global oil prices snapped a two-day decline and rose around 2 percent on Wednesday on hopes prices will recover as energy companies cut production investment to alleviate a glut that has wiped out more than half crude's value since June.
The lift in prices come after OPEC's Secretary General and the International Energy Agency's chief economist both said they expected prices - hovering at April 2009 lows - to rebound later this year.
Total SA
The cut is "headline-grabbing," analyst Matt Smith of Schneider Electric said, but it will be months before an actual reduction will manifest itself.
"Until that point, we're going to continue to be weighing OPEC's ongoing production versus these potential cuts in the U.S.," he said.
Brent
The dollar index <.DXY> was fairly flat, trading just under 93 as traders waited for the European Central Bank to announce a bond-buying program to support the European economy.
On the technical side, U.S. crude has yet to break through key resistance levels, indicating there is no clear pattern for a major upswing or downswing in coming days.
"We've been trading in a consolidation range in the last few days. At this point in time, it looks like WTI and Brent are starting to carve out some sort of low," said Brian LaRose a technical analyst with United-ICAP.
Turmoil in Yemen further encouraged expectations there would be a long-term recovery, analysts said. Yemen's president was expected to yield to demands from Houthi rebels after two days of battle with presidential guards, a move Arab neighbors called a coup.
On the demand side, U.S. appetite for crude, typically strong in spring, might be higher than usual because fewer refineries are shutting for maintenance this year, IIR Energy said.
The American Petroleum Institute's weekly snapshot of supplies will draw attention back to the U.S. supply glut, Schneider Electric's Smith said. The report is due late on Wednesday, one day late because of a holiday on Monday.
The more closely watched U.S. government inventory report follows on Thursday. Crude stocks were expected to have risen 2.6 million barrels.
(Additional reporting by Himanshu Ojha in London and Alex Lawler and Henning Gloystein in Singapore; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Andre Grenon)
