Early on Tuesday, WTI crude oil prices have dropped by over 1% over escalating worries that OPEC and its allies could consider increasing crude production when they meet later this week. At the time of writing, WTI crude oil is trading at around $59.88 per barrel.

During the previous session, WTI oil fell by around 1.4% and has already garnered around 1.2% of losses in early trading today. Oil traders have turned cautious amid rising expectations for OPEC+ to boost oil output – by as much as 1.5 million bpd, during the upcoming meeting scheduled for 4 March 2021.

In February, crude output from the leading oil producing nations of the world had contracted after Saudi Arabia agreed to curtail supply by an additional 1 million bpd amid the second wave of the pandemic driving further weakness in oil demand around the world. However, with the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccines gathering steam across several countries, the demand for crude oil is likely to improve in the coming months as the global economy heads towards recovery.

Crude oil faced additional downward pressure at the beginning of this week following the release of disappointing manufacturing data from China. The world’s second largest energy consumer registered a slowdown in factory activity during February, which could contribute to weakness in oil demand.