For The Archives -- Some Quick Headlines -- Crude Oil Pricing, Oil Industry M&A, Russian/Saudi Production Chatter -- January 28, 2016

For the archives, just the headlines and the links. I assume the links will break over time.

• From Reuters/Rigzone: oil investor Andrew Hall sees conditions ripe for a rebound in crude oil prices. Andrew Hall runs Astenbeck Commodities Fund. Disagrees with talk of oil going to $10/bbl; suggests a rebound instead.
• From Rigzone: oil companies holding on -- Deloitte says M&A deals down 53%.
• From Rigzone: oil prices rise on slightly positive data.

Wednesday morning, oil rose in intraday trading off some relatively positive data points from the Energy Information Agency (EIA) that included an unexpected draw to distillate stocks and a weekly increase in refined product demand. The Federal Reserve’s highly anticipated announcement Wednesday afternoon that kept rates unchanged, helped weaken the dollar, which contributed to the rise in oil prices. The front-month contract for Brent settled up 4.1 percent at $33.10/bbl and WTI’s front-month contract settled on the NYMEX at $32.30/bbl (up 2.7%). Oil markets were also encouraged by further speculation that a possible Russia-OPEC agreement to curb oil production could take place.

• From Forbes: coordinated Russian-Saudi oil output cut chatter sounds ridiculous -- but the author does not rule that out.