Oil prices steadied on Tuesday, depressed by record Saudi production but supported by expectations that oil exporters would agree to cut output at an OPEC meeting next week. Brent crude oil LCOc1 was up 10 cents a barrel at $60.58 by 1105 GMT, hovering above a 13-month low of $58.41 reached on Friday. U.S. light crude CLc1 was unchanged at $51.63. Oil prices have lost almost a third of their value since early October, weighed down by an emerging supply overhang and widespread financial market weakness.
“The oil price correction has become a rout of historic proportions,” U.S. investment bank Jefferies said in a note. “The negative price reaction is as severe as the 2008 financial crisis and the aftermath of the November 2015 OPEC meeting, when the group decided not to act in the face of a very over-supplied market,” the bank said.