Investing.com - Oil prices were under pressure during European morning hours on Wednesday, falling to the lowest level since the end of November after data overnight showed another increase in U.S. crude supplies.
The U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude May contract shed 78 cents, or around 1.6%, to $47.46 a barrel by 6:10AM ET (10:10GMT), a level not seen since November 30.
The U.S. benchmark settled lower for the third session in a row on Tuesday as the market weighed rising U.S. drilling and growing stockpiles against efforts by major producers to cut output to reduce a global glut.
Elsewhere, Brent oil for May delivery on the ICE Futures Exchange in London sank 84 cents to $50.12 a barrel. The global benchmark touched $50.06 earlier, its cheapest since November 30.
After markets closed Tuesday, the American Petroleum Institute said that U.S. oil inventories rose by 4.5 million barrels in the week ended March 17.
The API report also showed a drop of 4.9 million barrels in gasoline stocks, while distillate stocks declined 880,000 barrels.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration will release its official weekly oil supplies report at 10:30AM ET (14:30GMT) Wednesday. If the increase is confirmed, it would be the 11th weekly build in the past 13 weeks.
Oil has fallen sharply this month amid concern that the ongoing rebound in U.S. shale production could derail efforts by other major producers to rebalance global oil supply and demand.
OPEC agreed in November last year to curb its output by about 1.2 million barrels per day between January and June. Russia and 10 other non-OPEC producers have agreed to jointly cut by an additional 600,000 barrels per day.
In total, they agreed to reduce output by 1.8 million barrels per day to 32.5 million for the first six months of the year, but so far the move has had little impact on inventory levels.
OPEC's latest monthly report showed global oil stocks in January rose to 278 million barrels above the five-year average.
OPEC members increasingly favor extending the output curb beyond June to balance the market, sources within the group said, although they added that this would require non-OPEC members such as Russia to also step up their efforts.
Kuwait is scheduled to host a ministerial meeting on March 26 comprising both OPEC and non-OPEC members to review compliance with the output agreement and to discuss whether cuts would be extended beyond June.
Elsewhere on Nymex, gasoline futures for April shed 1.3 cents, or 0.9%, to $1.595 a gallon, while April heating oil slipped 1.9 cents to $1.483 a gallon.
Natural gas futures for April delivery slumped 2.2 cents to $3.071 per million British thermal units.