North Sea oil rose in early Asian trade on Wednesday, on further hopes for a global economic rebound and as the US dollar retreated, the latter forcing a market recalibration in prices given that oil globally is priced in US dollars, traders said.

Benchmark Brent crude rose 34 cents to $65.83 in Singapore around noon, on the ICE Futures exchange.

Meanwhile the other benchmark, WTI for November delivery was up 42 cents at $67.13 by midday in Singapore in electronic trading on NYMEMX.

Traders said the rise in oil prices were despite fundamentals. According to a reported issued late on Tuesday by the American Petroleum Institute, US oil inventories rose last week. Crude stocks increased 2.8 million barrels against expectations from analysts of a 2.1 million barrel increase.

"The support we saw at $65 was quite significant," Christoffer Moltke-Leth, head of sales trading at Saxo Capital Markets in Singapore, told news agency AP.

"The hope for recovery is still pretty strong, and that's what's holding prices up," he added.

Other analysts agreed with that assessment.

"There is still this feeling that the worst is over so eventually the economy is going to pull us out of this," Bloomberg wire service quoted Anthony Nunan, an assistant general manager for risk management at Mitsubishi Corp. in Tokyo, as saying.

"The fundamentals don’t look good but we’ll see fund buying interest at this level."