Oil soars

London

Oil rose on Monday, putting July on track to become the strongest month this year, as news of a producers' technical meeting next week added to bullish sentiment driven by the threat of US sanctions against OPEC member Venezuela.

Oil traders also eyed the bullish impact from a production outage following a fire at Europe's largest refinery and further signs that the US market is tightening after heavy inventory falls and slower new oil rig additions last week.

"The sentiment in the oil market became very bullish after OPEC said it will meet with partners in Abu Dhabi next week to discuss compliance," said Frank Schallenberger, head of commodity research at LBBW.

Some OPEC and non-OPEC members will meet on August 7-8 in Abu Dhabi to assess how the group can increase compliance with production cuts that began on January 1.