UPDATE 8-Brent touches $45/bbl on vaccine hopes and U.S. crude drawdown

* Brent and WTI crude benchmarks touched highs up more than
2%
* U.S. crude stocks down 5.1 mln bbls last week, API says
* European lockdowns and rising COVID-19 cases cap gains

(Updates with settlement prices)
By Jessica Resnick-Ault
NEW YORK, Nov 11 (Reuters) - Global oil benchmark Brent rose
on Wednesday, briefly touching a more than two-month high above
$45 a barrel on hopes of a COVID-19 vaccine that could boost
demand and later pulling back as concerns about rising cases
overtook bullish news.
Brent LCOc1 settled up 19 cents, or 0.4%, at $43.80 a
barrel, after earlier trading at a session peak of $45.30 - the
first time it has cleared the $45 threshold since early
September.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 settled up 9
cents at $41.45, after setting a session high of $43.06.
Both Brent and WTI prices are up about 11% this week after
initial trial data showed the experimental COVID-19 vaccine
being developed by Pfizer Inc PFE.N and Germany's BioNTech
22UAy.DE was 90% effective.
Still, concerns about rising cases weighed on the market.
"The record number of cases is enough to snap everyone back
to reality," said Bob Yawger, director of energy futures at
Mizuho in New York.
The expectation that a vaccine could restore demand for
transportation fuels is critical for oil, said John Kilduff,
founding partner at Again Capital.
"Transportation across the board has been so impacted by the
pandemic that getting past it would revive demand for those
fuels, which is what the petroleum complex needs."
Renewed restrictions in Europe and the United States to
combat the coronavirus have slowed fuel demand recovery,
offsetting a rebound in Asian economies where consumption has
almost returned to pre-COVID levels. U.S. crude stockpiles last week fell 5.1 million barrels to
about 482 million barrels, industry group data showed on
Tuesday, compared with expectations for a reduction of 913,000
barrels in a Reuters poll of analysts. API/S EIA/S
Government data will be issued on Thursday, delayed a day
due to the U.S. Veterans Day holiday on Wednesday.
Algeria's energy minister said that the Organization of the
Petroleum Exporting Countries and allies could extend oil
production cuts into 2021, or even deepen them. Saudi Arabia's
energy minister had said on Monday that supply pact could be
"tweaked".

(Additional eporting by Koustav Samanta, Aaron Sheldrick and
Noah Browning
Editing by Edmund Blair, David Goodman, Marguerita Choy and
Sonya Hepinstall)