By Geoffrey Smith
Investing.com -- Crude oil's day went from bad to worse, after newswires reported that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia had failed to agree even on rolling over their existing deal on output restraint.
By 9:55 AM ET (1455 GMT), U.S. crude futures were down 6.6% at $42.82 a barrel, while Brent futures were down 5.9% at $47.06.
Prices had already tumbled some 4% earlier in the day amid signs that Russia would refuse the OPEC proposal to cut an extra 1.5 million b/d from their existing levels. The failure to roll over even the existing deal leaves the market facing its biggest supply-demand imbalance since the end of 2015.