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Oil prices fell on Thursday, with the Brent sliding to a 2018 low, as surging U.S. production countered efforts by OPEC to tighten markets. Despite the fall, a North Sea pipeline outage and a record Chinese imports provided support to the market.
Brent crude futures stood at $65.39 per barrel, falling 12 cents or 0.2 percent from the prior close. The international benchmark edged down to its lowest level for the year, trading at $65.12 per barrel early in the session.
U.S. WTI crude futures traded at $61.60 a barrel. It was down 19 cents or 0.3 percent, from the previous settlement, though still some way off its $60.10 2018 low on January 2.
The decline comes after bigger declines on Wednesday, when crude hit one-month lows and cleared much of 2018's early gains.
Some support stemmed from the second outage in as many months on the 450, 000 bpd Forties pipeline network, which supplies majority of the crude supporting Brent futures, as well as the record crude imports of China in January, which came in at 9.57 million bpd.
However, the biggest market driver was U.S. output. U.S. crude output averaged around 10 million bpd for the first time since the early 1970s in the previous week, hitting 10.25 million bpd.
