U.S. oil prices plunged by 3.11 percent Monday amid renewed pressures on Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) from U.S. President Donald Trump.
Trump tweeted Monday, "Oil prices getting too high. OPEC, please relax and take it easy. The world cannot take a price hike - fragile!"
To bolster oil prices, OPEC and its partners have started to cut output by 1.2 million barrels per day as of January, and Saudi Arabia vowed to cut production more than required during a deal reached in December 2018.
As of February 22, the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) futures price rebounded by 34.6 percent from the low of 42.53 U.S. dollars per barrel set on December 24, 2018.
OPEC and its partners are scheduled to meet on April 18 in Vienna to review their production cut agreement, which was designed to last throughout the first half of 2019.
WTI for April delivery sank 1.78 U.S. dollars to settle at 55.48 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Meanwhile, the Brent crude for April delivery lost 2.36 U.S. dollars to settle at 64.76 U.S. dollars a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.
Source(s): Xinhua News Agency