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By Bloomberg

Oil held gains after a rebound from the lowest price since April 2009 as investors weighed whether the sell-off was excessive amid speculation that U.S. production growth may slow.

Futures rose as much as 1.5 percent in London. The market has almost bottomed out with “some recovery” possible by the second half of the year, according to Andrew J. Hall, a commodity hedge fund manager. Credit Suisse Group AG cut its forecast for this year’s increase in U.S. crude output by 500,000 barrels a day.

Oil’s collapse has been so rapid and so driven by sentiment that forecasters from Bank of America Corp. to UBS AG say there are no clear signs of when the rout will end. The U.S. is pumping the most crude in more than three decades as horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing unlock shale reserves, adding to a global supply glut that Qatar estimates at 2 million barrels a day.

“It’s no longer a one-way bet,” Gordon Kwan, the Hong Kong-based head of regional oil and gas research at Nomura Holdings Inc., said by phone today. “People finally realized that oil prices have been oversold. This should be a technical rebound, but I don’t think it will bring us to above $60.”

Brent for February settlement gained as much as 76 cents to $51.91 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange and was at $51.34 at 1:50 p.m. Singapore time. The contract rose 5 cents to $51.15 yesterday. The European benchmark crude traded at a premium of $2.45 to West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. marker grade.

‘Trading Opportunities’

WTI for February delivery climbed as much as $1, or 2.1 percent, to $49.65 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. It increased 72 cents to $48.65 yesterday. The volume of all futures traded was about 30 percent above the 100-day average.

Current prices aren’t sustainable in the longer term and there may be “attractive trading opportunities” over the coming 12 months, Hall, the head of Astenbeck Capital Management, wrote in a Jan. 2 letter to investors obtained by Bloomberg News. Oil will remain under pressure this year, according to the letter.

Implied volatility for at-the-money options in the front- month WTI contract rose to 60.2 percent this week, the highest level in more than three years, data compiled by Bloomberg show. It’s about 48 percent today, while Brent’s volatility is near 45 percent.

Production Growth

U.S. output expanded to 9.14 million a day through Dec. 12, the highest level in weekly data from the Energy Information Administration that started in January 1983. Growth may slow by 800,000 barrels a day in 2016, David Hewitt, the co-head of global oil and gas equity research at Credit Suisse, said at an investor conference in Singapore today.

Credit Suisse had previously expected U.S. production to increase by 1.3 million barrels a day in 2015, and 1.4 million next year, he said. Brent crude will average $75 a barrel this year and $80 in 2016, according to Hewitt.

Crude stockpiles shrank by 3.06 million barrels to 382.4 million in the week ended Jan. 2, reported the EIA, Energy Department’s statistical arm. A 700,000 barrel gain was forecast, according to the median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of nine analysts.

The nation’s crude exports increased 34 percent to 502,000 barrels a day in November, the most in records dating back to 1920, data from the Census Bureau and the EIA show. Lawmakers in Washington are seeking to end a 40-year-old law that restricts crude sales to just a few overseas markets.