Investing.com - Oil prices continued to slide on Tuesday, adding to a sharp decline for the month of October as concerns over the outlook for global demand amid simmering trade tensions, coupled with increasing supply and rising inventories, pummeled the outlook for crude.
New York-traded West Texas Intermediate crude futures fell 98 cents, or 1.46%, at $66.06 a barrel by 8:56 AM ET (12:56 GMT).
Meanwhile, Brent crude futures, the benchmark for oil prices outside the U.S., traded down $1.31, or 1.69%, to $76.03.
U.S. crude is on track for a monthly decline of nearly 10%, while Brent is off 8% since the end of September.
Saudi Arabia pledged earlier in the month to raise oil output to offset the fall from Iranian exports expected to be caused by the U.S. sanctions, while Russia also said on Saturday that there is no reason for the country to cut its production levels.
After many months of concern about shortage of supply ahead of U.S. sanctions on Iran, the oil market is beginning to be concerned about possible oversupply and inventories that are rising in many parts of the world.
The latest reading on U.S. crude stockpiles will come late Tuesday from the American Petroleum Institute, while official government data will be released a day later amid expectations for a build of 3.67 million barrels.
If confirmed, that would be the sixth-straight weekly climb that has already seen domestic supplies swell by a total of 28.7 million barrels over that period.
In other energy trading, gasoline futures slid 1.03% to $1.8061 a gallon by 8:59 AM ET (12:59 GMT), while heating oil slumped 1.44% to $2.2515 a gallon.
Lastly, natural gas futures traded up 1.85% to $3.244 per million British thermal units.