Crude dips on report of Saudi oilfield expansion

The losses come after a week of strong gains in the commodity that were on the back of hopes for the outlook for China's economy and speculation about the resumption of talks on limiting output.

Saudi Arabian Oil Co. will complete an expansion of its Shaybah oilfield by the end of May, allowing the world's largest exporter to maintain total capacity at 12 million barrels a day, Bloomberg News reported.

The move will see Shaybah's capacity rise from 750,000 barrels to 1.0 million barrels a day, the report said.

The report caused "market jitters", said Bernard Aw, an analyst with IG Markets in Singapore.

"If the Saudis ramp production up by a substantial amount, the USD 40 mark should be easily broken. That creates a problem that we're not even going to see the oil market rebalance, not even by the first half of next year," he told AFP.

Prices tumbled initially last Monday after the collapse of a meeting of major producers aimed at freezing output.

However, falling US production, a strike in key producer Kuwait and signs of a pick-up in key market China helped propel an 8.3-per cent surge over the week for WTI, while Brent rose 4.7 per cent.

The oil market had also won support from the Baker Hughes weekly US rig count, which showed oil producers curtailed use of eight drilling rigs in the week ending April 22.

Aw added that prices are still being supported by hopes of an agreement to freeze output at OPEC's next twice-yearly meeting on June 2.

"There's still a little bit of optimism that producers could come to some sort of an agreement in June... The market participants are always quite hopeful of such talks," he noted.

The global oil market had nosedived from above USD 100 in mid-2014 to 13-year lows of around USD 27 in February, plagued by the stubborn supply glut.