The heads of the world’s largest oil trading houses sought to draw a line under nearly two years of falling prices on Tuesday as Brent crude rose to its highest level so far in 2016. Vitol, Trafigura, Mercuria, Gunvor, Glencore and Castleton, which sell enough oil to meet almost a fifth of global demand — were all but unanimous in telling a Financial Times conference in Lausanne that oil prices were unlikely to revisit the sub-$30 lows they hit in early January. Brent crude oil, the international benchmark, climbed by nearly 4 per cent to hit a four-month high of almost $45 a barrel on Tuesday amid mounting expectation of a deal to freeze production at this weekend’s Opec summit in Doha. Igor Sechin, head of the Kremlin-backed oil company Rosneft, echoed the traders’ view, and argued that a price of at least $50 a barrel was needed to avert future supply shortages. “The oil price is growing. I think everyone is expecting the successful outcome of our work,” Mr Sechin told the FT conference in an apparent reference to a possible deal on an output freeze this weekend. “We will need higher price levels than $45 or even $50 a barrel.” The remarks came ahead of a weekend meeting in Qatar when Opec kingpin Saudi Arabia and other big oil producers, including Russia and Venezuela, will try to freeze output in a bid to hasten the end of an oil glut. This is potentially the first significant concerted action to stabilise prices since the oil price went into freefall in late 2014.