LONDON (Reuters) - Oil prices extended losses on Monday as Saudi Arabia and Russia said they may increase supplies while U.S. production gains show no signs of slowing.
Brent crude futures LCOc1 stood at $75.39 a barrel at 1208 GMT (8.08 a.m. ET), down $1.05 from the previous close and after touching a three-week low of $74.49 earlier in the session.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were at $66.85, down $1.03, after hitting a six-week low of $65.80.
The spread between the two contracts CL-LCO1=R reached $9.38 a barrel, its widest since March 2015.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and other producers led by Russia began withholding 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) of supplies in 2017 to tighten the market and prop up prices that in 2016 fell to their lowest in more than a decade at less than $30 a barrel.
Prices have soared since the start of the cuts last year, with Brent breaking through $80 this month, triggering concerns that high prices could crimp economic growth and stoke inflation.
“The pace of the recent rise in oil prices has sparked a debate among investors on whether this poses downside risks to global growth,” Chetan Ahya, chief economist at U.S. bank Morgan Stanley, wrote in a weekend note.
To address potential supply shortfalls Saudi Arabia, de-facto leader of producer cartel OPEC, and top producer Russia have been in talks about easing the cuts and raising oil production by 1 million bpd.
Russian energy minister Alexander Novak said that a return to October 2016 production levels, the baseline for the current supply pact, is one
