Oil prices dip over scepticism ahead of OPEC meeting

SINGAPORE: Oil prices fell early on Tuesday on doubts that producer cartel OPEC will be able to hammer out a meaningful output cut during a meeting on Wednesday to rein in a global supply overhang and prop up prices.International Brent crude oil futures LCOc1 were trading at $48.10 per barrel at 0102 GMT, down 14 cents, or 0.3 percent, from their last close.U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures CLc1 were down 19 cents, or 0.4 percent, at $46.89 a barrel.The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) is meeting officially in Vienna on Wednesday to discuss a planned production cut in an effort to curb overproduction that has dogged markets and more than halved prices since 2014.With a high degree of uncertainty going into the last 24 hours before the meeting, oil price volatility is expected to be high.”We expect intra-day volatility to ratchet higher again into tomorrow, with price action being entirely headline driven,” said Jeffrey Halley, senior market analyst at OANDA brokerage in Singapore.There remains disagreement among OPEC-members over which producers should cut by how much, and a plan to bring non-OPEC oil giant Russia to participate has so far also failed.