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For oil, the focus continues to be mainly on the supply side of the equation rather than demand.

Ongoing productions cuts from the OPEC and some allies outside of the cartel continue to support oil prices

The price of crude oil continues to find support from growing expectations that the ongoing productions cuts from the OPEC and some allies outside of the cartel are helping to rebalance the market.

Crude oil prices are lower for the third day, after Brent and WTI both hit new highs for the year on Monday following a sharp kick-back rally in January.

Crude oil has staged a vicious kick-back rally since the turn of the year, now on its eighth consecutive day. But now WTI has reached a critical technical area around $52.50-52.80 and what it does here could determine the direction of prices over the next several days.

The so-called OPEC+ group of oil producers, which includes the traditional players in the oil cartel as well as non-OPEC countries such as Russia, look set to agree on cutting oil production to help shore up prices, defying calls from US President Donald Trump to leave output unchanged and keep prices low.

The effort by the OPEC+ to rebalance the market may only have limited impact on prices, due to the still-rising US oil output.

Oil prices have been falling sharply for the past five weeks or so and the poor run of form has continued for another day today.

It comes after a meeting of OPEC and non-OPEC oil ministers in Algiers over the weekend, which concluded with a decision that there is no urgent need to boost crude output.

Despite last week’s bullish close, WTI is set to end lower on the month. And with prices already turning lower on the week, we are not convinced that oil has bottomed out yet.