Oil drops over $1 on oversupply after OPEC+ delays meeting

* OPEC+ delays meeting on output cuts to April 9
* Saudi, Russia blame each other for collapse of March talks
* Trump threatens tariffs on U.S. oil imports
* Biggest weekly fall in U.S. rig count in five years last
week -
Baker Hughes
* Output cuts won't prevent huge build-up in crude stocks -
IEA

By Florence Tan and Jessica Resnick-Ault
SINGAPORE/NEW YORK, April 6 (Reuters) - Oil prices slipped
more than $1 a barrel on Monday, after the world's top producers
delayed a meeting to discuss output cuts that could partly
alleviate oversupply in global markets as the coronavirus
pandemic pummels demand.
Brent crude LCoc1 slipped close to $30 a barrel in early
trade and was at $32.82 by 0203 GMT, down $1.29, or 3.8%. West
Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 fell $1.66, or 5.9%, to
$26.68 a barrel, after earlier touching a low of $25.28.
Late last week, prices surged, with U.S. and Brent contracts
posting their largest ever weekly percentage gains due to hopes
that OPEC and its allies would strike a deal to cut crude supply
worldwide by at least 10 million barrels per day (bpd). O/R
Prices on both sides of the Atlantic marked their worst
month on record in March as the coronavirus pandemic crippled
demand while a price war between Saudi Arabia and Russia left
the market awash in supplies.
The producers were initially set to meet on Monday, but that
has now been pushed to April 9, after they blamed each other for
the collapse of talks in March. It "just took a delay in the meeting between Saudi and
Russia to knock the wind out of that rally", said Michael
McCarthy, chief strategist at CMC Global Markets in Sydney.
U.S. President Donald Trump said he would impose tariffs on
crude imports if necessary to support U.S. oil
sector. The head of the International Energy Agency has said oil
inventories would still rise by 15 million bpd in the second
quarter even with output cuts of 10 million bpd.
He urged the world's richest economies to discuss broader
ways to stabilise oil markets. Still, a move by Saudi Arabia to delay the release of its
crude official selling prices indicates it is not eager to flood
the market with low-priced supplies before a potential
agreement, said Robert McNally, president of Rapidan Energy
Group in Bethesda, Maryland.
"That's a pretty clear sign that they are open to cutting
production in May," he said.
The kingdom delayed the release until Friday to wait for the
outcome of the meeting between OPEC and its allies regarding
possible output cuts, a Saudi source told Reuters. prices could also firm as decades-low prices have
already forced producers to cut output, CMC's McCarthy said.
"There's a lot of talk about potential bankruptcies
particularly in U.S. shale producers and that deals with a lot
of supply issues that's plaguing the market," McCarthy said.
"In the short term the low prices are very painful, but if
it does lead to a lot of those players leaving the industry, the
supply side of the equation will balance out."
Rig counts in the United States fell by 62 last week, energy
services firm Baker Hughes Co BRK.N said on Friday, marking
the biggest weekly drop in five years, as U.S. energy companies
slashed spending on new drilling due to a coronavirus-related
slump in economic activity and fuel demand. Brazil's Petrobras has also doubled its oil output cuts to
200,000 bpd, or 6% of its total production.