SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Oil held ground on Thursday near 2006 lows below $58, as traders waited for OPEC to hammer out details of an output cut to prop up falling prices, while the market anticipated a rise in U.S. crude inventories.
U.S. crude rose 14 cents to $57.73 a barrel at 0605 GMT, after a 93-cent loss on Wednesday, when it touched $57.37, the lowest level since December 2005. London Brent crude was up 9 cents at $58.74.
OPEC ministers aim to remove a million barrels per day (bpd) from oil supplies, but are divided on whether to make a reduction from a notional 28 million-bpd production ceiling or from actual supply of nearly 27.5 million bpd in September.
"Speed is of the essence more than anything else -- dithering to date has cost them credibility," said Tobin Gorey, commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia. "Actual output will of course have to fall to have an impact on actual prices."
Investec Bank Ltd. said in a report on Thursday that with OPEC's unsuccessful haggling over output, oil was likely to hang below $60 a barrel for the time being.
Qatar's oil minister Abdullah bin Hamad al-Attiyah said on Wednesday he expected the cut to come from actual output. He said a formal decision will soon be announced, either in a statement within two or three days or at a meeting between October 16 and 18.
But Libya's top oil official said on Wednesday that OPEC ministers are still debating how to implement the cut and how to distribute the quotas among members, although the aim was a 1 million-bpd cut.
"If prices remain at this level there's still not much motivation to cut, but if prices keep falling rapidly they will want to pre-empt that," said Gordon Kwan of CLSA.
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