Investing.com - Oil prices traded lower on Monday after an emergency meeting in Vienna regarding Iran's nuclear compliance and concerns over weakening demand took the bite out of bulls.
New York-traded West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell 15 cents, or 0.3%, to $56.05 a barrel by 7:00 AM ET (11:00 GMT), while Brent crude futures, the benchmark for oil prices outside the U.S., dropped 32 cents, or 0.5%, to $63.05.
Senior Iranian nuclear negotiator Abbas Araqchi called the discussions with parties involved in the 2015 nuclear deal “constructive” and said that there were “lots of commitments” after “good” discussions.
Araqchi did however say that there were still unresolved issues and Tehran will continue to reduce nuclear commitments if Europe fails to salvage the agreement which the U.S. pulled out of.
Stephen Innes, managing partner at Vanguard Markets, said that overall it appeared that Iranian nuclear compliance could be a “small step” towards reducing the U.S.-Iran dispute, which in turn more oil returning to the market.
“Oil bulls don't have a lot of breathing room to operate," Innes said. "Rallies will be tough to come by as markets remain throttled by global growth and (the) ever so slight tinge of Iran supply concerns coming back to the market."
In the latest sign of a global slowdown, Japan slashed its economic growth forecast for this year largely due to weaker exports, in a sign the protracted U.S.-China trade war is taking a bigger toll on the world's third-largest economy.
The announcement followed U.S. data out Friday that confirmed a slowdown in the American economy during the second quarter.
The International Monetary recently cut its own global growth outlook, while European Central Bank President Mario Draghi said last week that prospects for the euro zone economy were getting “worse and worse”.
In other energy trading, gasoline futures lost 0.8% to $1.8080 a gallon by 7:02 AM ET (11:02 GMT), while heating oil dipped 0.1% to $1.9124 a gallon.
Lastly, natural gas futures traded down 1.2% to $2.124 per million British thermal unit.
-- Reuters contributed to this report.