Oil weaker below $46.00 mark, OPEC meeting holds the key

WTI crude oil witnessed a bearish gap opening on Monday, adding on to Friday's steep losses, and broke below $46.00/barrel mark ahead of this week's OPEC meeting in Vienna.

Currently trading around $45.60 region, the black gold came under intense selling pressure during opening trade on Monday as Saudi Arabia, the world's largest oil producer and de-facto leader of OPEC cartel, backed out of Monday's OPEC meeting and poured cold water over possibilities of any deal on production cuts / output freeze at Wednesday’s official meeting. 

However, a broad based US Dollar retracement was seen supporting demand for dollar-denominated commodities and limited further downslide just above $45.00 handle. Adding to this, headlines (via. Reuters) that Algeria and Venezuela will discuss output freeze today, extended additional support to the commodity's recovery from session low. 

Technical levels to watch

Any recovery attempt might now confront strong resistance near $46.00 handle above which a bout of short-covering could assist the commodity to stage a recovery back towards $46.55-60 resistance ahead of $47.00 handle. On the downside, renewed weakness below $45.35 immediate support might now drag the commodity below session low support near $45.15 region towards testing $45.00 psychological mark support.

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