By Christopher Alessi and Stephanie Yang

-- Oil prices declined on Wednesday, reversing gains after reports that the Iranian oil minister noted discord among OPEC members at its meeting last week.

-- Light, sweet crude for January delivery fell 1% to $51.15 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, reversing gains after trading as high as $52.88 earlier in the session.

-- Brent, the global benchmark, lost 0.1% to $60.15 a barrel.

HIGHLIGHTS

OPEC Doubts: According to Bloomberg, Iran's oil minister Bijan Zanganeh said there were serious political disagreements within the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which last week came to a deal with other producers to cut production by a collective 1.2 million barrels a day. The reports of infighting within the cartel raised doubts about the ability of members to adhere to the deal and curb global oversupply.

"It undercut what was a facade at least of unity at the end of the OPEC meeting. The market lost some confidence as a result of that statement," said John Kilduff, a founding partner at Again Capital.

U.S. Inventories: The U.S. Energy Information Administration reported that crude stockpiles fell by 1.2 million barrels in the week ended Dec. 7, falling short of analyst expectations for a 2.8 million barrel drop. On Tuesday, the American Petroleum Institute reported that its own figures showed a 10.2 million barrel decline. Meanwhile, gasoline inventories rose by 2.1 million barrels and distillates fell by 1.5 million barrels last week.

Libya: Crude prices have been supported recently by a supply outage in Libya. The country's national oil company has declared force majeure on exports from the El Sharara oil field following an attack by a militia group over the weekend. Roughly 400,000 barrels a day of oil have come offline, according to analysts.

INSIGHT

OPEC: In its monthly oil-market report, OPEC said that Saudi Arabia's production climbed in November to a record of 11.01 million barrels a day. The report also said Russian oil supply hit a new post-Soviet record of 11.61 million barrels a day in October, and is expected to average 11.44 million barrels a day following the agreement among major oil exporters to curb production.

"As much as [U.S. inventory data] is providing a tailwind for oil prices, it should be noted that they are more or less back to the pre-OPEC meeting level," according to Stephen Brennock, analyst at brokerage PVM Oil Associates Ltd. "This goes to show that fresh OPEC+ supply curbs have failed to meaningfully boost upside potential," he added.

AHEAD

-- The International Energy Agency releases its monthly oil market report on Thursday.

Write to Christopher Alessi at christopher.alessi@wsj.com and Stephanie Yang at stephanie.yang@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 12, 2018 16:01 ET (21:01 GMT)

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