Investing.com - Oil prices started the week lower on Monday, following declines late last week triggered by a demand from President Donald Trump that OPEC step up output in order to offset the impact of U.S. sanctions against Iran.
London traded Brent crude futures were down 0.2% to $71.55 by 08:13 AM ET (12:13 GMT) after earlier hitting an intra-day low of $70.64, the weakest level since April 11.
U.S. crude prices were down 0.3% to trade at $63.14, holding above Friday’s three-week low of $62.28.
Prices closed off the worst levels of the day Friday after OPEC's Secretary General Mohammed Barkindo denied having spoken with Trump. The president later tweeted that he had spoken to Saudi Arabia.
ANZ bank said on Monday oil prices "took a hit after President Trump indicated he had spoken with Saudi Arabia about reducing the impact of lower Iranian oil exports by increasing flows elsewhere."
"Gasoline prices are coming down. I called up OPEC, I said you've got to bring them down. You've got to bring them down," Trump told reporters.
While off from its near six-month high of $65 per barrel from last week, crude is still up 39% on the year. Brent shows an annual gain of 33% despite sliding from last week’s peak of $75—a high last matched in October.
Prices had rallied after Trump tightened sanctions against Iran by ending all exemptions that major buyers especially in Asia previously had. Iran is OPEC’s third largest producer.
Traders said the market was shifting its focus on the voluntary supply cuts led by OPEC since the start of the year.
The cuts have been supported by some non-OPEC producers, most notably Russia, but analysts said this cooperation may not last beyond a meeting between OPEC and its other allies, a group known as OPEC+, scheduled for June.
Russia has said it would be able to meet China's oil demand needs as Beijing tries to replace the imports it usually gets from Iran.
"Russia appears to have every reason to resume ramping up production levels and the base case should start to become we will not see OPEC+ agree upon extending production cuts, with tweaks to cover the shortfall from Iran," said Edward Moya, senior analyst at futures brokerage OANDA.
In other energy trading, gasoline futures were down 0.37% to $2.0388 per gallon, while heating oil ticked up 0.11% to $2.0551 a gallon.
--Reuters contributed to this report