London — Oil slid back towards multi-month lows on Thursday, after a brief recovery early in the session, as traders warily eyed a glut of physical supply that has persisted despite oil cartel Opec-led efforts to balance the market. Brent crude futures were down 15c at $44.67 a barrel at 8.50am GMT, after spending much of the Asian trading day in positive territory. They fell 2.6% in the previous session to their lowest since November. US crude futures were down 14c at $42.39 a barrel, after also spending much of the day trading higher. On Wednesday, they touched their lowest intra-day level since August 2016. Since peaking in late February, crude has dropped about 20%, erasing gains at the end of the year in the wake of the initial Opec-led production cut. Opec and other producers agreed to reduce output by 1.8-million barrels per day (bpd) from January for six months, and last month extended the deal for a further nine months. But oversupply has persisted, particularly with output...
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