1st LD Writethru: Oil prices drop amid ample supplies

Oil prices dropped on Monday as the market expected that global supply would surpass the demand.

Abdalla El-Badri, general secretary of Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), said Monday in an interview that there is an oversupply of about 1.5 million barrels a day on the oil market and OPEC is open to a meeting with countries outside the organization to tackle the glut.

He said the oil market will be back to balance by a reduction in supply, rather than an increase in demand.

The OPEC agreed at a Nov. 27 meeting to maintain its collective output target of 30 million barrels a day.

In December, OPEC crude oil production averaged 30.20 million barrels per day, an increase of 0.14 million barrels per day over the previous month, according to OPEC's monthly oil market report issued earlier.

U.S. crude stockpiles increased 10.1 million barrels to 397.9 million of the week ending Jan. 16, 46.6 million barrels more than a year earlier, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA) report released Thursday.

The crude production of the United States decreased slightly to 9.186 million of that week, according to EIA data.

Light, sweet crude for March delivery dropped 44 cents to settle at 45.15 dollars a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange,while Brent crude for March delivery dropped 63 cents to close at 48.16 dollars a barrel. Endite