Oil prices extended losses for a third day in a row on Wednesday despite an industry report showing a larger than expected drop in crude inventories, as concerns over OPEC’s ability to counteract an ongoing crude glut continued to weigh on market sentiment.
The US West Texas Intermediate crude futures traded 0.33 percent lower at $49.01 per barrel as of 07:05 GMT, while the London based Brent contracts on the ICE Futures Exchange in London were down 0.42 percent to $51.92 a barrel.
The American Petroleum Institute said late on Tuesday that crude inventories fell 7.8 million barrels in the week ended August 4 to 478.4 million barrels. Analysts had forecasted a 2.7 million barrels drop.
Market participants are still looking ahead of data from the US Energy Information Administration. Official figures will be available as of 14:30 GMT on Wednesday.
According to analysts, US shale oil production is expected to continue slowing down for quite some time as producers find very difficult to make profits when prices move under $50/barrel.
Meanwhile, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries seems to be struggling to promote a higher compliance with the output cut agreement among its own members.
Libya and Nigeria oil productions have been recovering in the last few weeks and they aren’t contributing to the deal as they were exempted from it.
OPEC and non OPEC countries have renewed its output cut deal for a nine month period last May in an effort to increase crude prices and rebalance market forces.
