Oil Rises to $49 from Biggest Slide in Week as Volatility Rises

Oil rebounded from the biggest drop in a week amid signs that prices near a 5 1/2-year low are slowing drilling in the U.S., the fastest-growing producer.

Futures rose as much as 1.4 percent in New York, retracing some of yesterday’s 4.7 percent slide. BHP Billiton Ltd., the largest overseas investor in U.S. shale, said it will cut the number of active drill rigs in the nation by nearly 40 percent. Prices have probably reached their bottom, Iraqi Oil Minister Adel Abdul-Mahdi said in Kuwait on Wednesday.

Oil fell almost 50 percent last year, the most since the 2008 financial crisis, as the U.S. pumped crude at the fastest rate in more than three decades and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries resisted calls to reduce supply.

“Slower drilling is visible,” Olivier Jakob, managing director at Petromatrix GmbH in Zug, Switzerland, said by e-mail. “We have already seen the trend through the weekly rig counts.”

West Texas Intermediate for March delivery gained as much as 66 cents to $47.13 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange and was at $46.60. The February contract expired on Jan. 20 after falling $2.30 to $46.39.