Investing.com – Crude oil remained lower on Monday, pulling away from recent two-week highs as news of a rise in U.S. drilling added to concerns over output levels and overshadowed upbeat global demand projections.
The U.S. West Texas Intermediate April contract was down 21 cents or about 0.29% at $62.23 a barrel by 10:00 a.m. ET (14:00 GMT), after hitting a two-week peak of $62.54 on Friday.
Elsewhere, for May delivery on the ICE Futures Exchange in London slipped 7 cents or about 0.11% to $66.14 a barrel, off Friday’s two-week highs of $66.42.
Oil prices came under pressure after Baker Hughes energy services firm said on Friday that the number of active U.S. oil rigs increased by in the week to March 16, bringing the total count to 800.
High drilling activity has pushed U.S. crude oil production to rise to 10.38 million barrels per day (bpd), past top exporter Saudi Arabia.
Adding to concerns, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia forecast last week that non-OPEC supply will hit around 1.60 million bpd in 2018, compared to 1.40 million bpd prior.
However, OPEC added that its efforts to cut supply continued to contribute to rebalancing the market.
OPEC agreed in December to cut oil output by 1.8 million bpd until the end of 2018. The agreement was due to end in March 2018, having already been extended once.
The data overshadowed forecasts by the International Energy Agency late last week of an increase in global oil demand for the next year.
Elsewhere, were little changed at $1.942 a gallon, while lost 1.48% to $2.655 per million British thermal units.
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Source: Investing.com
