Oil retreats in Asia, eyes weekly API report

Oil benchmarks suffered moderate losses in Asia after having rallied 2% on Monday on producer deal speculation and Libya supply concerns.

At the time of writing, Brent futures were down 0.30% or 14 cents at $45.80/barrel. WTI futures were down 0.50% or 23 cents at $45.63/barrel.

Prices spiked on Monday after Venezuela said major producers could agree to freeze output at the Algeria meeting. Meanwhile, OPEC said it would convene extraordinary meeting if the production freeze agreement is put on the table.

Meanwhile, clashes in Libya and threat of decreased supplies further added to the bullish tone around oil prices. The focus today is on the American Petroleum Institute (API) report due for release later today.