Oil prices tumbled more than 3 percent on Friday after OPEC said October output reached another record.
Crude futures have wiped out gains made since the end of September when OPEC said it would agree to cut oil production to shore up persistently low prices.
Adding to bearish sentiment was US rig count data by oil services company Baker Hugh, which have shown an increase in 20 weeks out of the last 23. International Brent crude futures traded at $44.34 per barrel at 11:13 a.m. (1113 GMT), down $1.50, or 3.27 percent, its lowest since August.
US West Texas Intermediate futures were down by $1.51, or 3.4 percent, to $43.14 per barrel.
The International Energy Agency has said the supply overhang could run into a third year in 2017, should OPEC fail to act.
In its monthly oil market report on Thursday, the IEA said global supply rose by 800,000 bpd in October to 97.8 million bpd, led by record OPEC output and rising production from non-OPEC members such as Russia, Brazil, Canada and Kazakhstan.
In another development, Nigeria outlined a plan to overhaul state oil company NNPC and eventually list it on the stock exchange in a bid to modernize and streamline an industry known for graft and mismanagement. The ministry of petroleum released a draft to underpin industry reform stalled for a decade amid disagreements and political infighting over how best to manage the nation’s energy resources. The ministry seeks, in the proposal, to end the OPEC member’s reliance on oil exports and shift to a “gas-based industrial economy,” and said Nigeria needs to reform the oil sector or risk output falling.
“Unless there are additions to reserves and those reserves are brought into production, Nigeria can expect to see absolute declines in production from around 2020,” the plan said.
As a key step to improve crude output of around 2 million barrels a day, Nigeria wants to transform NNPC from an bureaucratic empire where little work gets done into an entity functioning like the private sector.

Source: Arab News