After moving higher in early trades on Monday on reports that Saudi Arabia and other major producers are considering reductions in crude output heading into 2019, crude oil futures pared gains and settled lower for an eleventh successive session.
U.S. President Donald Trump's latest tweet, "Hopefully, Saudi Arabia and OPEC will not be cutting oil production. Oil prices should be much lower based on supply," appears to have contributed to crude's fall from earlier higher levels in the session.
Crude oil prices had been climbing up last month amid expectations that the sanctions on Iranian oil from early November will result in short supply in the market. However, with the Trump administration offering waivers and allowing eight big oil importers to continue buying Iranian oil, and the consistent increase in U.S. crude inventories have been dragging down oil prices since October 29.
Last week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration released a report that revealed U.S. oil production increased by as much as 400,000 barrels a day to a record 11.6 million barrels a day for the week ended November 2. Also, crude stockpiles increased for seven successive weeks.
Crude oil futures for December, which rose to $61.28 earlier in the session, settled lower by $0.26, or 0.4%, at $59.93 a barrel, the lowest settlement since February 2018.
On Friday, crude oil futures ended down $0.48, or 0.8%, at $60.19 a barrel.
On Sunday, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid Al-Falih told reporters at the meeting in Abu Dhabi that the kingdom, the world's largest oil exporter, plans to reducer oil exports by 500,000 barrels per day in December , but there was no consensus as yet among oil producers about cutting production.
The Joint OPEC-non-OPEC Ministerial Monitoring Committee reportedly debated over whether it would be necessary to reduce output by one million barrels a day next year to prevent a market glut.
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