Investing.com - Oil prices plummeted around 4% on Tuesday, falling deeper into a bear market, as markets became increasingly worried that supply will outstrip waning demand and OPEC reportedly remained undecided on the size of A production cut.
New York-traded West Texas Intermediate crude futures slumped $2.36, or 4.13%, at $54.84 a barrel by 11:02 AM ET (16:02 GMT).
Meanwhile, Brent crude futures, the benchmark for oil prices outside the U.S., sank $2.62, or 3.92%, to $64.17.
With Tuesday’s decline, U.S. crude hit its lowest level since October 2017 and has fallen nearly 30% from the four-year high reached this year on Oct. 3.
Investors remain concerned that a global economic slowdown will dampen demand even as key producers -- mainly the U.S., Saudi Arabia and Russia -- continue to ramp up production.
According to the oilfield services firm Baker Hughes, the U.S. rig count rose by 2 to 888 last week, the highest level since March 2015.
The latest data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed that U.S. crude production hit a record 11.7 million barrels per day (bpd), marking an increase of more than 20% since a year earlier.
OPEC, which had been increasing production with the aim of offsetting the negative impact from U.S. sanctions on Iran, has recently been discussing a return to output cuts with non-OPEC producers led by Russia.
United Arab Emirates’ OPEC Governor Ahmed al-Kaabi said there was an initial agreement to cut production at the meeting on Dec. 6, but that the amount had yet to be decided, according to an interview with Al Bayan newspaper cited by Reuters.
Recent reports suggested that the cartel had moved from considering a 1 million bpd cut to 1.4 million as prices began to decline and the U.S. granted waivers to Iranian crude export sanctions to six major countries.
In other energy trading, gasoline futures tanked 4.01% to $1.5194 a gallon by 11:05 AM ET (16:05 GMT), while heating oil fell 3.17% to $2.0202 a gallon.
Lastly, natural gas futures traded down 4.21% to $4.502 per million British thermal units.