Investing.com - Oil pared losses on Monday, after falling to seven-year lows earlier in the session as ongoing worries over a global supply glut continued to weigh.
Crude oil for delivery in January on the New York Mercantile Exchange shed 12 cents, or 0.34%, to trade at $35.50 a barrel during U.S. morning hours. It earlier fell by as much as 3% to $34.54, the lowest since February 2009.
Last week, New York-traded oil futures tumbled $4.35, or 10.88%, the biggest weekly decline since December 2014. U.S. oil futures are down 36% so far this year amid worries over ample domestic supplies.
Elsewhere, on the ICE Futures Exchange in London, Brent oil for January delivery dipped 68 cents, or 1.75%, to trade at $37.65 a barrel after being down by as much as 4.1% at $36.76, a level not seen since the depths of the global financial crisis in December 2008.
Brent futures plunged $5.07, or 11.79%, last week, its worst weekly loss of the year. Brent oil prices are on track to post an annual decline of 35% in 2015, as oversupply concerns dominated market sentiment for most of the year.
Oil futures have fallen every day since the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries failed to agree on output targets on December 4. Prices are down nearly 17% over the past seven sessions.
On Friday, the International Energy Agency projected that a global supply glut could worsen next year. In its December oil market report, the Paris-based IEA said that global oil demand growth will slow to 1.2 million barrels per day next year, down from 1.8 million in 2015, widening the gulf in the supply-demand imbalance worldwide.
The bearish estimates came after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said it pumped the most crude in more than three years last month, adding to concerns over a glut in global supplies.
In its own monthly oil market report published last Thursday, OPEC said crude production rose by 230,100 barrels a day in November to 31.695 million, the most since April 2012, as the cartel pressed on with a strategy to protect market share and pressure competing producers.
Global crude production is outpacing demand following a boom in U.S. shale oil and after a decision by OPEC last year not to cut production in order to defend market share.
Meanwhile, the spread between the Brent and the WTI crude contracts stood at $2.15 a barrel, compared to $2.31 by close of trade on Friday.