REUTERS
Crude prices dipped on Monday as influential bank Goldman Sachs poured cold water on the prospects of a planned oil producer meeting successfully reining in global oversupply, Reuters reported.
Despite this, prices failed to fall further because of a firm demand outlook as well as a tightening supply side, according to Reuters.
U.S. crude rose above $40 a barrel in early trading, pushed by a tightening U.S. market, but prices eased to $39.56 by 0612 GMT, down 16 cents from Friday's close. Brent was down 16 cents at $41.78 a barrel.
Read alsoOil futures rise but traders warn on premature rallyU.S. crude rose sharply late last week after U.S. energy firms cut oil rigs for a third straight week to the lowest since November 2009 as companies slash spending, according to a report.
Brent gained on production outages in the North Sea and West Africa and on hopes that a planned meeting on April 17 of producers will freeze output in an attempt to rein in ballooning overproduction - estimated at about 1 million barrels per day (bpd) in excess of demand.
But Goldman Sachs cautioned that the results of the meeting, planned in Qatar for April 17, may end up being bearish for the market, Reuters writes.
Read alsoBloomberg: Saudi Arabia will only freeze oil production if Iran joins"A production freeze at recent production levels would not accelerate the rebalancing of the oil market as OPEC (ex. Iran) and Russia production levels have this year remained close to our 2016 average annual forecast of 40.5 million bpd," the bank said.