Oil drops more than 2% ahead of OPEC-Plus meeting

Oil prices fell on Monday, dropping more than 2% and giving up an 8-month high, to head for the second loss in 3 days, after news the OPEC-Plus coalition failed to agree on delaying the planned output hike of early next year, which comes ahead of the official meeting of the global coalition that's scheduled later today.

US crude fell 2.4% to $44.45, after opening at $44.54, and hit a session high of $45.54, and Brent crude fell 2.5% to $47.04 a barrel, after opening at $48.24, with a high of $48.24.

The US crude gained 1.25% on Friday, after losing 1.9% on Thursday on profit-taking from its 8-month peak of $46.24.

Brent crude futures gained 1.1%, after losing 3.3%  on Thursday, on profit-taking from the highest since March 6 of $49.06.

Oil prices gained 7% during the past week, posting the fourth straight weekly gain, in the longest weekly gains streak since late July.

These gains came thanks to optimism about Covid-19 vaccines that will finally help in putting an end to the pandemic, which is only few steps away.

At 13:00 GMT, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) will meet with its independent allies led by Russia, in what is internationally known as OPEC-Plus, and will start discussing production policies for the next year after the recent developments of the spread of the second Covid-19, in addition to news about effective vaccines.

Reuters cited informed sources that the group held an initial round of talks on Sunday, but did not agree on the production policy for 2021 amid objections from some member states.

The OPEC-Plus coalition is considering several options, led by extending the current output cuts for extra 3 months until the global situation becomes more clear during the first quarter of 2020.

OPEC-Plus is currently implementing the second phase of the cut agreement, cutting about 7.7 million bpd until the end of December, and will be lowered to 5.7 million bpd in phase three, starting from January 2021 until April 2022.