* South America oil producers announce talks on prices
* Oil traders ditch short positions, turn bullish on oil
* In other commodities, iron ore sees 20 pct jump
By Henning Gloystein
SINGAPORE, March 8 (Reuters) - Brent crude oil prices remained over $40 a barrel in early trade on Tuesday, after jumping to a 2016-high the previous session as more producers announced talks to support the market and investors opened new bets on further price rises.
International benchmark Brent crude futures LOCc1 managed to defend $40 per barrel in early trading on Tuesday, standing at $40.70 at 0106 GMT. On Monday, the contract had surged over 5.5 percent in intra-day trading and remains 50 percent above 2016 lows from Jan. 20.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures also remained stable after Monday's jump, trading at $37.84 a barrel at 0108 GMT, only slightly down from their last close but over 45 percent up from their 2016 low in February.
"Sentiment continues to improve as discussion about a production freeze linger," ANZ bank said on Tuesday.
Oil markets first gained traction last Friday after Russia's energy minister said that a meeting between the OPEC group and other leading oil producers about freezing output could take place between March 20 and April. on Monday South American producers also said they would meet to talk about action to support prices. a result, ANZ bank said that oil traders had started to cut back short positions that would profit from lower prices.
"Speculators reduced short positions in WTI crude by 15 percent in the week ended 1 March," the bank said.
Until late February, traders held near record amounts of short positions that were betting on further price falls, but sentiment has since flipped, indicating that the market increasingly thinks that prices have bottomed out.
The combined net long position in West Texas Intermediate (WTI) and Brent futures and options was boosted by more than 61 million barrels last week to the highest level in nine months. haven't only turned bullish on oil. Iron ore prices, a key ingredient for making steel, shot up almost 20 percent on Monday in what some called its biggest ever single-day price rally on hopes that demand from China would pick up, at least in the short-term.