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Crude production by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting
Countries rose in April to 32.64 million barrels per day (bpd),
close to the highest level in recent history.
Russia, the biggest exporter outside OPEC, also increased
monthly crude for seaborne exports by more than 7 percent to
3.117 million bpd in April.
Brent <LCOc1> was trading at $46.77 per barrel at 0840 GMT, down
60 cents from its last settlement. U.S. crude <CLc1> was down 40
cents at $45.52 a barrel.
Liquidity was low due to May Day holiday in many countries.
On Friday, the June Brent contract expired at $48.13 a barrel, a
21.5 percent gain over the month that marked the largest monthly
advance since May 2009. Earlier in that session it reached
$48.50, a six-month high.
The U.S. oil rig count fell for the sixth week last week, which
analysts said showed the price of oil had not risen enough to
lure shale producers back.
"Despite the price rise, we continue to see a declining rig
count," said Bjarne Schieldrop, chief commodities analyst with
SEB Bank in Oslo. "The message from the shale players is
that...you don't need prices to fall more. It's already doing
what it should do in order to rebalance."
A weaker dollar <.DXY>, which makes it cheaper for countries
using other currencies to import dollar-traded fuel, kept
further oil price losses at bay.
The chief of the International Energy Agency (IEA) said oil
prices may have bottomed if no major global economic issues
emerge.
"In a normal economic environment, we will see the price
direction is rather upwards than downwards," IEA Executive
Director Fatih Birol said on Sunday during a G7 meeting of
energy ministers in Japan.
Non-OPEC output is set to fall by more than 700,000 bpd this
year, the biggest decline in around 20 years, he said.
While Morgan Stanley warned that an emerging gasoline glut
threatened refinery demand for crude, Birol said the draw in
global stockpiles should start toward the end of the year.
At the G7 meeting, U.S. Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said U.S.
oil production would likely fall 600,000 bpd this year from
2015, when output peaked around 9.6 million bpd.
(Additional reporting by Henning Gloystein; in Singapore and
Osamu Tsukimori in Kitakyushu; editing by Susan Thomas)
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