Commodities: Crude sinks on doubts over sufficiency of Opec cut extension

Oil prices resumed their move southwards on Tuesday as bears carried out another round of selling, doubting cartel Opec's extended production cuts would alleviate the global glut.

At 15:41 BST, Nymex-priced West Texas Intermediate crude was dwn 0.8% to $49.40 a barrel. Intercontinental Exchange-traded Brent fell 1.34% to $51.59 a barrel.

Just last week, Opec extended its production pledge by nine months into 2018, which saw prices tumble lower.

"The oil market remains on the back foot," Stephen Brennock, analyst at PVM Oil Associates, told Reuters.

"Last week’s decision by Opec to extend its output pact (has failed) to alleviate lingering fears of a global oil glut," he told the news agency.

This appeared to chime with FXTM research analyst Lukman Otunuga's comments last week, which were that he expected further weakness in crude prices as the oversupply fears bit.

Others had highlighted similar themes, too, a good number centred on whether Opec had extended its output cuts by enough and for long enough.

Jasper Lawler, senior market analyst at London Capital Group, said continuing weakness in oil markets after last week’s Opec meet "doesn’t help -- but may also be symptomatic of the shunning of riskier assets."

Meanwhile, on Comex, gold was down 0.39% to $1266.5 an ounce. Silver rose 0.47% to $17.41 an ounce, and copper fell 0.12% to 256.3 cents a pound.

On London Metals Exchange, three-month industrial metals were mixed. Copper fell 1.16% and aluminum dropped 0.46%, while zinc added 0.27% and tin firmed 0.12%.