Brent pulls back off 3-month high after weak Chinese data

Brent prices remained lower as the US market opened on Monday to surrender a 3-month high and head to the first daily loss in the last 6 days on profit-taking and slowdown concerns after the release of weak Chinese exports data, but losses are ebbed by a drop in US drilling activities and renewed hopes about a trade deal between the US and China.

Brent crude fell to $63.64 a barrel, after opening at $64.34, with a high of $64.40.

Brent futures gained 1.7% on Friday and posted a 3-month high of $64.86.

Those gains were achieved after the OPEC-Plus coalition announced on Friday agreeing on further output cuts by about 500K barrels per day until the end of next March.

In the new agreement the total production cut between OPEC and the independent producers amount to 1.7 million bpd, around 1.7% of global production and will be implemented only within 3 months, and didn't pledge any new measures for after the end of March 2020.

OPEC-Plus also decided to hold an extraordinary general meeting in March 2020, to review the production policy and assess the extent to which the new cut would be more effective.

Goldman Sachs said "this decision reflects an important shift in strategy to managing short-term imbalances rather than trying to correct long-term imbalances through open-ended commitments".

During the last week, oil prices gained 6.5%, their fourth straight weekly gain and the largest weekly since mid-September, after the new OPEC agreement and a surprise drop in US crude inventories.

Chinese government revealed today that exports fell for the fourth straight month in November, which renewed concerns about the impact of the ongoing trade war between the US and China.