Crude oil futures settled at their lowest level since mid-December as OPEC’s production output program weighs on the minds of investors, according to Bloomberg MarketWatch.
February West Texas Intermediate crude lost $2.03, or 3.8%, to settle at $51.96 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
March Brent crude, the global benchmark, fell $2.16, or 3.8%, to end trading at $54.94 a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.
The OPEC production curb agreement wasn’t implemented until the beginning of 2017, so monthly oil reports released by the EIA on Tuesday and OPEC on January 18 and the International Energy Agency on January 19 aren’t likely to provide much information for traders.
Monday’s prices were unfazed by news that the U.S. Energy Department plans to sell up to 8 million barrels of sweet, crude oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve this month.
The news didn’t come as a surprise and “this really isn’t a significant amount of supply coming into the market,” said Jenna Delaney, oil analyst with Platts Analytics, the forecasting and analytics unit of S&P Global Platts.
Meanwhile, February natural gas fell by 18.2 cents, or 5.5%, to settle at $3.103 per million British thermal units on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after losing nearly 12% last week. The settlement level was the lowest since late November.