* Outages in North Sea, West Africa lifts Brent
* Both WTI, Brent crude futures back above $40 per barrel
By Henning Gloystein
SINGAPORE, April 11 (Reuters) - Oil futures on Monday extended sharp rises from the end of last week following a decline in U.S. inventories and drilling, while outages and hopes that exporters could freeze output boosted international prices.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures CLc1 were trading at $40.17 per barrel at 0002 GMT, up 45 cents or 1.1 percent from their last close.
International Brent crude futures LCOc1 were up 35 cents or 0.8 percent at $42.29 a barrel.
U.S. energy firms cut oil rigs for a third week in a row to the lowest level since November 2009, oil services company Baker Hughes Inc BHI.N said Friday, as energy firms keep slashing spending despite crude futures prices jumping roughly 50 percent since hitting a near 13-year low in February.
Drillers cut 8 oil rigs in the week to April 8, bringing the total rig count down to 354, Baker Hughes said in its closely followed report. prices had previously been supported by a drop in U.S. crude stocks, albeit from all-time highs.
Brent was lifted by production outages in the North Sea and West Africa, as well as by hopes that a meeting of exporters planned for April 17 would result lead to an agreement to rein in ballooning overpoduction that sees at least 1 million barrels per day pumped in excess of demand.
With both benchmarks back above $40 per barrel, analysts said that more investors could be attracted if prices now breached highs reached in March, when Brent rose above $42.50 and WTI rose to $41.90 per barrel.
"Crude oil prices are back to or near the March high and a significant resistance point. If oil prices can break above this level, investor sentiment towards commodities should receive a further boost," ANZ bank said on Monday.
<^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Graphic on U.S. rig counts
http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/15/rigcount/index.html
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^> (Editing by Richard Pullin)