LONDON -- Oil eased below $62 a barrel on Monday, pressured by high inventories and mixed signals over whether OPEC will curb crude output for a second time this year at a meeting this week.
Saudi-owned Al Hayat newspaper quoted OPEC sources as saying the group would keep supply unchanged at Thursday's meeting in Nigeria. Several OPEC ministers, including Saudi Arabia's, have earlier said a cut may be made.
"Right now, it is a bit difficult to find a real catalyst to send prices higher," Olivier Jakob, oil analyst at Petromatrix in Zug, Switzerland, said.
U.S. crude slipped 40 cents to $61.63 a barrel at 1345 GMT. London Brent lost 12 cents to $62.08.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries agreed to lower output by 1.2 million barrels a day from Nov. 1 to stem a slide in prices from a peak of $78.40 hit in July.
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According to a Reuters survey, the group that pumps more than a third of the world's oil has made about 730,000 bpd of the promised cutback, OPEC's first in two years.
Kuwait's energy ministry said in a statement carried on state media on Monday that OPEC would discuss a possible output cut of around 500,000 bpd at Thursday's meeting.
On Friday, OPEC President Edmund Daukoru said he favoured a further cut to counter ample inventories, particularly in top oil consumer the United States.
In the United States, crude oil inventories are at the highest level for this time of year since 1993.
Some analysts say an additional cutback is not needed just as world oil demand is heading towards its seasonal peak during the Northern Hemisphere winter.
"I don't think OPEC needs to cut any further because of winter demand and the impact of cuts they have already made," Mike Wittner, analyst at investment bank Calyon, said.
Even so, Saudi Arabia has told oil refiners in Asia that it will reduce their supplies next month.
State oil firm Saudi Aramco told Japanese, South Korean and Taiwanese refiners that it will cut January supplies to 8 to 9 percent below their contracted annual volumes, deeper than the curbs imposed in December.
About half of the kingdom's 7 million bpd of crude exports move to Asia. The world's largest oil exporter kept supplies to European refiners steady, traders said.
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