Оn Monday oil prices fell two percent, Reuters reports.
The selling was triggered by a recovery in oil supply from the largest oil field in Libya, which started to get back to normal after a brief disruption by armed protesters near Zawiya — a city situated on the Libyan coastline of the Mediterranean Sea about 45 km west of Tripoli.
Zawiya has one of the two most important oil refineries in the country. It has boosted Libya's oil production up to more than 1 million bpd in June 2017.
As a result, Brent crude futures went down 26 cents, or 0.5%, at $52.16 a barrel after trading even lower — $51.37 a barrel.
Additionally, many traders were questioning the effectiveness of output cuts by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) together with Russia and other top producers of oil.
"The petroleum markets are tipping toward the lower end of their recent trading range as oil producers meeting in Abu Dhabi have been slow to assure the market that compliance with this year’s production cuts will be improved, although we continue to note that adherence to the limits has actually been quite strong by historical standards,” Citi Futures' energy futures specialist Tim Evans said.
OPEC and non-OPEC technical committee officials have a second day of meetings in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday to discuss ways to support compliance with the deal of1.8 million barrels per day cut in oil production. It should be noted however that OPEC output hit a 2017 high in July and its exports hit a record.