Crude Oil Falls to New Low For Year

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rude oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange closed below $58 a barrel on Wednesday, reaching a new low for the year as traders shrugged off reports of a production cut by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, Bloomberg reported.

Bloomberg quoted Levi Ajuonuma, a spokesman for OPEC president Edmund Daukoru, as saying that individual members of the consortium would consider voluntary production cuts on a nation-by-nation basis.

Earlier Wednesday, the Associated Press quoted Daukoru himself as saying that OPEC members had reached an accord on scaling back production and were mulling ways to share the cuts.

Nigeria and Venezuela, who missed their combined production quota by 470,000 barrels, have already announced combined cuts of 170,000 barrels a day.

Crude oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 93 cents to settle at $57.59 at close of trading on Wednesday.