Oil falls as non-OPEC yet to pledge concrete output steps

Oil prices extended declines on Monday after non-OPEC producers made no specific commitment to join OPEC in limiting oil output levels to prop up prices, suggesting they wanted the oil producing group to solve its differences first.

Officials and experts from OPEC countries and non-OPEC nations including Azerbaijan, Brazil, Kazakhstan, Mexico, Oman and Russia met for consultations in Vienna on Saturday and only agreed to meet again in November before a scheduled regular OPEC meeting on Nov. 30, they said in a statement.

London Brent crude for December delivery was down 21 cents, or 0.4 percent, at $49.50 a barrel by 0614 GMT after settling down 76 cents on Friday. NYMEX crude for December delivery was trading down 18 cents, or 0.4 percent, at $48.52 a barrel, after closing down $1.02 on Friday.

“There was a lot of talk and nobody managed to agree on anything. That has been pushing the market down,” said Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at OANDA brokerage in Singapore.

The potential tightening of the U.S. presidential race after news of a renewed FBI probe of Democratic candidate Hilary Clinton was also affecting sentiment and putting investors off riskier assets, Halley said.

OPEC and non-OPEC said in a joint statement that Saturday’s meeting was a “positive development” towards reaching a global output limiting deal on Nov. 30.

On Friday, OPEC members also failed to agree on how to put in place a global deal to limit production, following objections from Iran which has been reluctant to even freeze its output, sources said.

Russia expects to increase its oil output by 0.7 percent next year and a further 0.9 percent in 2018, the draft federal budget showed.

Crude production is expected to be a record-high 548 million tonnes in 2017 and 553 million tonnes in both 2018 and 2019, up from an estimated 544 million tonnes this year, the document showed.

In a bearish sign, money managers cut their net long U.S. crude futures and options positions for the first time in five weeks in the week ended Oct. 25, the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) said on Friday.