Brent crude futures had dropped 31 cents to $48.93 a barrel by 0434 GMT, after settling the previous session up 55 cents, or 1.1 percent.
U.S. crude, was down 28 cents at $47.55, after closing up 78 cents and having touched a one-month high of $48.32 that session. Both November contracts expire after Friday’s settlement.
Brent and U.S. crude are on course for a weekly gain of around 7 percent, prompting investors to take profits in the Asian trading session, said Jonathan Barratt, chief investment officer at Sydney’s Ayers Alliance.
The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, OPEC, agreed on Wednesday,September 28, to cut output to 32.5-33.0 million barrels per day (bpd) from around 33.5 million bpd, estimated by Reuters to be the output level in August.
The details, including the quotas for each member and the implementation data, will be finalized at OPEC’a policy meeting in November.
“It’s incredible,” Barratt said on the oil price moves. “The U.S. has more confidence the deal will be done than traders and investors in Asia,” he said after prices rose in the previous session and fell on Friday in the Asia time zone.
“U.S. investors believe OPEC wouldn’t have announced a deal if its members hadn’t already signed off on it,” Barratt said.
“In essence the 700,000 barrel per day cut is a minute amount compared with total production, but it marks a turnaround by Saudi Arabia to preserve OPEC,” Barratt added.
OPEC’s move to cut output has raised the upside risk to prices in the fourth quarter this year and in 2017 and while the deal will help to strengthen market sentiment there will be muted impact on fundamentals, BMI Research said in a report on Friday.
