Ministers of the OPEC have been unable to reach consensus on a quota cut for more than a year now [Xinhua]
Global stocks are reeling from the uncertainty of an impending deal by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on cutting production in order to stabilize oil markets.
On Tuesday morning, Russia said it would not attend an OPEC meeting in Vienna on Wednesday which did nothing to alleviate fears that the cartel was beset by internal divisions about the cuts.
At press time, international benchmark Brent Crude fell 1.68 per cent to $47.43 a barrel.
Late Monday night, Reuters reported that OPEC experts ended their meeting without agreeing on any concrete details for the reduction in oil output by individual countries to be presented to an OPEC ministerial-level gathering on Wednesday.
After more than nine hours of talks, Iran and Iraq continued to insist on higher output numbers, as they have done in recent weeks.
US benchmark West Texas Intermediate also fell 1.78 per cent to $46.24 a barrel and pulled stocks down with it.
US stocks also dipped, as the Dow Jones industrial average by 0.28 per cent, the S&P 500 lost 0.58 per cent and the Nasdaq Composite dropped 0.56 per cent.
In Europe, London’s FTSE 100 was down by 0.72 per cent; Tokyo’s Nikkei dipped by 0.27 per cent while Hong Kong’s Hang Seng fell 0.41 per cent.
The BRICS Post with inputs from Agencies
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