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By Alexandra Valencia

QUITO (Reuters) -A live broadcast by Ecuadorean television station TC was interrupted on Tuesday by hooded and armed people, who obliged staff to lie on the floor, as shots and yelling were heard.

Some of the hooded people were later seen on the feed leaving a sound stage with some staff.

The incident comes amid the kidnappings of at least seven police officers and a series of explosions, a day after President Daniel Noboa declared a state of emergency.

A live feed, which eventually cut out, showed staff huddling on the floor of TC’s studios in Guayaquil, as armed figures gestured at the camera. Someone on the live feed could be heard yelling “no police”.

The national police said on social media its specialized units were deployed at the location to attend to the emergency.

Noboa, son of one of the country’s richest men, took office in November promising to stem a wave of drug trade-related violence on the streets and in prisons which has been growing for years.

Noboa declared a 60-day state of emergency – a tool used by his predecessor to little success – on Monday, enabling military patrols, including in prisons, and setting a national nighttime curfew.

The measure was a response to the apparent escape of Adolfo Macias, leader of the Los Choneros criminal gang, from the prison where he was serving a 34-year sentence, and other recent prison incidents, including hostage-takings of guards.

(Reporting by Alexandra Valencia in Quito, additional reporting by Tito Correa and Karen ToroWriting by Julia Symmes CobbEditing by Tomasz Janowski and Rosalba O’Brien)

By Nell Mackenzie

LONDON (Reuters) – Shares in Grifols fell as much as over 40% on Tuesday, wiping $3.83 billion off its market value, after hedge fund Gotham City Research questioned its accounting, prompting the Spanish drugmaker to “categorically” deny any wrongdoing.

Below are some of the main points from the report and company comments – translated from Spanish – from a response it had sent to the Spanish financial regulator and shared with Reuters.

OVERSTATED EARNINGS

Gotham City Research said that Grifols received almost all of its earnings from so-called “non-controlling interests.”

These satellite companies a few of which the shortseller focused on in its report, include blood donation firm Haema AG, plasma donation company BPC Plasma and testing firm Grifols Diagnostics Solutions, account for 96.8% of the company’s profits, the report says.

However, Scranton Enterprises, a family office set up by members of the Grifols founding family, also reports earnings from the same subsidiaries, according to the report, which said Grifols sold Haema AG and BPC Plasma to Scranton Enterprises in 2018.

Both Scranton Enterprises and Grifols cannot claim those earnings at the same time, the report said.

Grifols said in its statement to the regulator that under a management contract it continued to manage the plasma centers of Biotest and Haema and bought all the plasma obtained by these companies. It did not address Gotham’s claim of double-reporting of profits in its statement to the regulator or in its response to a Reuters request for comment about that claim.

OWNERSHIP OF HAEMA AG AND BPC PLASMA

Grifols reports the earnings of Haema AG and BPC Plasma on its accounts because it has an option to buy back the two companies’ shares, Gotham City says. But the shortseller argues that counting earnings from companies that it doesn’t own is “highly suspect.”

In its statement to the regulator, Grifols said that accounting rules meant it did have control of these companies through voting rights attached to the options.

UNDERSTATED DEBT

While Grifols included satellite companies’ earnings in its accounts, the firms’ debts are not included in Grifols accounts, and would add to its debt burden if they were, says Gotham City.

A $95 million loan to Scranton Enterprises in 2018, is not disclosed in Grifols’ filings and only appears in Scranton filings, the report says.

Nothing material is hidden here, Grifols said in its statement. Scranton Plasma, which bought Biotest and Haema, asked for financing from “credit institutions” and a lender required Grifols to provide a “vendor’s financing” loan to Scranton Plasma for the transaction, the company said. Grifols is not affected in any way by the loan, did not participate in its negotiation, does not have the power to finance it and is not its guarantor, said the statement.

Grifols was involved in a share stake sale of one of its U.S. diagnostics subsidiaries with Shanghai RAAS (SRAAS) but has not removed its total earnings from accounts, says the Gotham City report.

Grifols says under the sale terms and agreement it could still recognize these earnings on its accounts.

The Gotham City report also said that Scranton Enterprises, the Grifols’ family entity, was highly leveraged and if it were to fail, that would be material to Grifols because of the debt owed between the companies.

Grifols said in its statement that transactions between the two entities have been recorded on the books of the company and in its public accounts, presented to the Spanish regulator and the company has filed forms with the SEC in the United States, so there is no new information that can be considered hidden, Grifols said in its statement.

SHORTSELLER PROFITS

General Industrial Partners, a joint venture between hedge funds Gotham City Research and Portsea Asset Management took a short position of 0.57% in Grifols on Jan. 8, a regulatory filing with the Spanish regulator CNMV shows.

The hedge funds would have made around 20 million euros in profit when Grifols shares tumbled by up to 40% after Gotham City’s report was published.

Grifols said in its statement it did not understand the report’s ” interpretation” unless its only objective was to lower the company’s share price and profit from it.

Grifols said in its statement to the regulator it planned to issue another response regarding aspects of the business mentioned in the Gotham City report.

($1 = 0.9142 euros)

(Reporting by Nell Mackenzie; Edited by Amanda Cooper and Tomasz Janowski)

By Nathan Layne and Tim Reid

WAUKEE/DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) – Nikki Haley got a late Christmas present on Tuesday morning: the state of Iowa free of her main rivals for the 2024 Republican nomination just six days before the party’s first nominating contest.

With one stuck in court and another tending to his day job back home, Haley made her pitch to about 100 voters who braved snow-blanketed roads to attend a rally at Mickey’s Irish Pub in Waukee, a suburb of the state capital Des Moines.

Haley’s comments regarding the “hard truth” about the mounting legal troubles facing former President Donald Trump, who was some 1,000 miles away in Washington for a court hearing, prompted voter Valerie Bantz to nod in agreement.

“I think he is a walking dumpster fire, and I don’t want any part of that,” said Bantz, a 55-year-old nonprofit volunteer who voted for Trump when he was first elected in 2016 but not in 2020, when he lost to Biden.

Bill Kirk, a retired carpenter, said he made the 30-minute drive to see Haley, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Trump, after watching her performance during a TV town hall on Monday night.

“I’m hoping she’ll finish the wall and get that thing zipped up,” he said, referring to the U.S-Mexico border.

Kirk voted for Trump twice but said he was tired of the drama.

“I don’t like his mouth. It gets old,” he said.

Trump, who opinion polls show is the favorite to win in Iowa and the overall nomination to take on President Joe Biden in November, attended a court hearing on Tuesday where his legal team argued that he is immune from federal criminal charges accusing him of trying to overturn the 2020 election.

Meanwhile, Ron DeSantis, who is vying for second place in Iowa against Haley as they aim to be the clear alternative to Trump, was in Tallahassee, Florida, for his annual governor’s speech to the legislature. DeSantis was due to back in Iowa by evening for a live town hall on Fox News.

TRIMMING THE LEAD

Two polls released on Tuesday showed Haley cutting Trump’s lead in the second state due to pick its Republican candidate, New Hampshire, where a primary will be held on Jan. 23.

Both showed the former president still ahead by a sizeable margin, however.

In a CNN poll conducted with the University of New Hampshire, Trump was seven percentage points ahead of Haley, down from a 22-point lead back in November.

A poll by USA Today/Boston Globe/Suffolk University showed him with a larger lead at 20 percentage points, down from a 30-point advantage in a poll released in October.

In Iowa, Alan Koslow, a self-described Democrat, said he planned to switch his registration to Republican on caucus night and vote for Haley as a way to stop Trump.

“I want to weaken Donald Trump, and I think if she has a strong showing in Iowa that would help her going into New Hampshire,” he said, adding he would back Biden in November’s election.

JUDGE JUDY’S RULING: HALEY FOR PRESIDENT

Haley’s campaign blasted out a mass email on Tuesday announcing an unconventional endorsement: the support of Judge Judith Sheindlin, better known as TV’s “Judge Judy,” who meted out no-nonsense justice from the bench in her long-running reality daytime courtroom show.

Calling Haley “whip smart,” Sheindlin, 81, said, “I truly think she can restore America and believe she is the future of this great nation.”

Haley will hope Sheindlin’s endorsement brings better luck than her pick in 2020, when she backed the ill-fated and short Democratic presidential run of former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

(Reporting by Nathan Layne, Timothy Reid and Costas Pitas; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Daniel Wallis)

(Reuters) – Japanese automaker Honda Motor announced on Tuesday plans to launch a new electric vehicle series from 2026, as it plays catch-up with global rivals in the shift to battery powered cars.

Japan’s second-biggest car maker has been slow to step up EV sales, lagging behind European and U.S. competitors such as General Motors and Volkswagen, while facing a challenge from newer rivals such as China’s BYD.

Honda unveiled its “Honda 0 Series” and two concept models at the CES trade show in Las Vegas that it hopes will help it reach its goal of having battery-powered and fuel-cell vehicles make up all of its new car sales by 2040.

The automaker aims to roll out the first models of its new series by 2026, Honda executives told a December media briefing in Tokyo ahead of the announcement. The series will be launched globally, starting from the North American market.

The executives did not share at that briefing details of the series, such as pricing or how many models the company will launch as part of it and how many vehicles it seeks to sell.

Battery powered vehicles accounted for less than 0.5% of Honda’s worldwide sales of about 2.8 million cars over the first nine months of 2023, coming to about 11,000 vehicles, according to company data.

It sold about 10,400 of those, or around 93%, in China, but none in North America.

Honda has previously said it plans to build two million EVs globally a year by 2030 and has laid out a target to introduce 30 models powered solely by a battery by that year.

Canadian officials are meeting representatives of Honda this week, a government source said, following a news report that the car maker was considering building an almost 2 trillion yen ($13.9 billion) electric vehicle plant in the country.

One concept model it unveiled at the CES trade show was the Saloon, a sedan that was likely to seat four or five passengers.

While parts of its design may still change, the concept was likely to resemble quite closely how the vehicle would look in production, executives said at the Tokyo briefing.

The other concept the automaker unveiled was the Space-Hub, a van-like vehicle that was expected to seat six or seven people, the executives said.

Honda also unveiled its new EV series will sport a revamped logo that will use a more tilted and sleeker design than its existing one.

(Reporting by Daniel Leussink in Tokyo; Editing by Muralikumar Anantharaman)

By Michael S. Derby

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Comments over the weekend from a key Federal Reserve official have shed new light on how the central bank might end its ongoing effort to shrink its bond holdings, causing some market participants to revise views on the process’ endgame.

Speaking on Saturday, Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan explained how contracting liquidity in money markets may sway the outlook for what’s commonly referred to as quantitative tightening, or QT. Logan’s voice on the issue is notable because before taking over the reins of her bank in 2022, she managed the New York Fed’s massive holdings of cash and securities and implemented the monetary policy decisions of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee.

QT complements aggressive Fed rate rises aimed at combating high levels of inflation and involves the central bank shedding Treasury and mortgage bonds it bought to provide stimulus and stabilize markets during the early stages of the coronavirus pandemic.

The Fed doubled the size of its balance sheet between the spring of 2020 and the summer of 2022, when its holdings topped out at $9 trillion. Since 2022, the Fed has been allowing just under $100 billion per month in Treasury and mortgage bonds to mature and not be replaced, and that’s caused Fed holdings to shrink to $7.7 trillion.

The Fed wants bank liquidity at “ample” levels that avoids dislocations in money markets and affords it firm control over short-term rates. But outside of saying the process has a long way to go, Fed officials thus far offered only cursory guidance about how they’ll end QT.

The almost certain end of Fed rate rises and the prospect of rate cuts this year have put the outlook for the balance sheet at the forefront of markets’ attentions. Markets have been closely watching the rapid rundown in what’s called the Fed’s overnight reverse repo facility, or ON RPP, as a barometer for the liquidity the Fed wants to remove on the way to stopping QT.

“In my view, we should slow the pace of runoff as ON RRP balances approach a low level,” Logan said. “Normalizing the balance sheet more slowly can actually help get to a more efficient balance sheet in the long run” by making it easier for financial firms to adjust their individual liquidity levels, she said. Logan also noted that there are signs liquidity is getting tighter for banks.

SAME PLACE, DIFFERENT PACE

The process Logan describes echoes the last time the Fed shrunk its holdings, where it slowed the pace of the drawdown before bringing it to a close. Some economists now believe that while the ultimate destination for Fed holdings will be the same, it may take a touch longer to get there.

Logan’s comments indicated Fed officials “could start discussing slowing the pace of balance sheet runoff and then slow it a bit earlier,” Goldman Sachs economists said in a note. “But in that case, runoff should last a bit longer and the terminal size of the balance sheet should end up in roughly the same place, so the macroeconomic effects of starting earlier should be very minor.”

Analysts at research firm Evercore ISI said “Logan is not signaling an early end to QT” while noting market developments could still cause such a thing. Instead, they viewed her comments as providing a more fleshed-out roadmap for how the Fed will manage an end to QT.

“The Fed is paying attention to [the Secured Overnight Financing Rate] and QT evolution will be guided as much or more by price signals as quantity targets,” they wrote, adding “the timeline for agreeing internally, communicating and then executing a slowdown in the QT pace is speeding up a bit,” and it remains likely a tapering of QT will start in summer and the effort will end at the close of the year.

Evercore’s view jibes with a survey of Wall Street banks, which projected ahead of the Fed’s December policy meeting that QT will end in the fourth quarter with Fed holdings at $6.75 trillion, with bank reserves at $3.125 trillion and the Fed’s reverse repo facility holding $375 billion.

That said, Bank of America economists now project Fed officials will announce a tapering of the drawdown at the March FOMC meeting, while holding onto the view QT will end in summer.

There remain considerable devils in the details of how the Fed will shift gears, some noted, as the Fed still owns a lot of mortgages amid a desire to get its holdings back to all government bonds, so it’s possible decisions on tapering and halting may focus squarely on Treasury securities.

(Reporting by Michael S. Derby; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

By Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Global stock indexes mostly eased and Treasury yields edged higher on Tuesday, with investors bracing for key U.S. inflation data this week and the start of fourth-quarter company earnings.

The dollar was mixed, while in cryptocurrencies, bitcoin fell but remained near its strongest level since April 2022 amid anticipation the Securities and Exchange Commission will approve spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

All eyes will be on the U.S. consumer prices report for December, due on Thursday. It is expected to show headline inflation rose 0.2% in the month and by 3.2% on an annual basis.

Investors are looking for clues on when the Federal Reserve may begin cutting interest rates. Fed funds futures indicate a 64% probability of a March cut, down from 70% a week ago, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch Tool.

Results from some of the biggest American banks on Friday will unofficially kick off the U.S. earnings season.

“This is pre-earnings jitters, with valuations being quite rich, and you needing earnings growth to support these valuations,” said Phil Blancato, chief executive officer of Ladenburg Thalmann Asset Management.

The S&P 500 rose 24% in 2023.

Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York, said stock investors may also be nervous following news from Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. Samsung reported a likely 35% drop in fourth-quarter operating profit on Tuesday, much worse than analysts expected as weak consumer demand persisted in many of its businesses even as memory chip prices improved.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 173.11 points, or 0.46%, to 37,509.90, the lost 3.33 points, or 0.07%, to 4,759.91 and the gained 35.90 points, or 0.24%, to 14,879.67.

Boeing shares were down 0.7%. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said late on Monday it could not yet tell whether a recovered cabin panel that blew off an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 plane during a flight last week had been properly attached.

The MSCI world equity index, which tracks shares in 49 nations, lost 0.15%, while European stocks ended down 0.2%. Earlier, Japan’s Nikkei share average hit its highest level since March 1990.

Euro area unemployment data released on Tuesday came in below expectations.

The 10-year benchmark U.S. Treasury yield was up slightly at 4.02%, with U.S. Treasury yields briefly trimming gains after a solid U.S. Treasury three-year auction.

The dollar rose 0.12% against the yen to 144.38, while the euro was down 0.1% on the day at $1.0936, and the dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of currencies of other major trading partners, was up 0.2% at 102.52.

The dollar index hit a five-month low in December, with investors betting the Fed would cut rates sooner rather than later.

U.S. crude ticked up 2.29% to $72.41 a barrel. Brent crude rose to $77.73 per barrel. Spot gold was near steady at $2,028.29 per ounce.

(Additional reporting by Alun John in London, Scott Murdoch in Sydney and Johann M Cherian and Ankika Biswas in Bengaluru. Editing by Sharon Singleton, Andrew Heavens, Jonathan Oatis and Nick Macfie)

By Sheila Dang

(Reuters) -Social media company X on Tuesday announced three new content deals with former CNN anchor Don Lemon, former U.S. congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard and sports radio host Jim Rome, part of an effort to grow video content on the site.

The Elon Musk-owned platform, formerly Twitter, has struggled to retain advertisers amid of series of controversies ever since the billionaire bought the company in 2022, and is betting brands could return alongside the three personalities.

In a blog post on Tuesday, X said it was now a “video-first platform” and users were watching videos in 80% of their sessions.

“The Don Lemon Show” will have three 30-minute episodes per week, covering politics, culture, sports and entertainment, X said in a post on the platform.

The new show marks Lemon’s return after he said he was fired from CNN in April. CNN in a statement at the time said it had parted ways with Lemon but did not give a reason for his departure.

“I know now more than ever that we need a place for honest debate and discussion without the hall monitors,” Lemon said on X, calling the platform “the biggest space for free speech in the world.”

Gabbard said she was partnering with X on a series of short films to share stories of people “whose voices are silenced.”

Rome, host of “The Jim Rome Show,” will stream a new show on X five days a week starting after the Super Bowl, X said.

The company partnered with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson last year for an exclusive show following his departure from the network after a damaging lawsuit over false claims of election fraud.

(Reporting by Sheila Dang in Austin; Editing by Mark Porter)

By Nicole Jao

NEW YORK (Reuters) -Oil prices climbed over 2% on Tuesday as the Middle East crisis and a Libyan supply outage pared the previous day’s heavy losses.

Brent futures rose $1.90, or 2.5%, to $78.02 a barrel by 11:59 a.m. (1659 GMT). U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI) rose $1.91, or 2.7%, to $72.68.

Both benchmarks were up more than $2 at their session highs.

Prices were supported by the closure of Libya’s 300,000 barrels per day Sharara oilfield, one of Libya’s largest, which has been a frequent target for local and broader political protests, and Middle East tensions.

The Israeli military has said its fight against Hamas will continue through 2024, stoking concerns the conflict could escalate into a regional crisis that disrupts oil supplies.

Meanwhile, some major shipping companies are still avoiding the Red Sea after attacks by Iran-aligned Houthi militants in response to Israel’s war against Hamas.

“The more attractive alternative for (oil tankers) right now is to make a dash for the United States, where crude oil is cheaper than Brent,” said Bob Yawger, director of energy futures at Mizuho.

Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd will continue to divert vessels around the Cape of Good Hope, it said on Tuesday.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Israeli leaders there was still a chance of winning acceptance from their Arab neighbours if they create a path to a viable Palestinian state.

Brent and WTI posted 3% and 4% losses respectively on Monday after sharp cuts to Saudi Arabia’s official selling prices (OSP), prompting both supply and demand concerns.

“The question is whether the Saudi move of reducing OSPs to a 27-month low is also a sign of a potential increase in oil supply, implying serious discord within OPEC+,” said PVM analyst Tamas Varga.

Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, however, emphasised its desire to support efforts aimed at stabilising oil markets.

The American Petroleum Institute (API), an industry group, will release its weekly oil inventory reportsat 4:30 p.m. EST. U.S. crude stockpiles were expected to have fallen last week, while distillate and gasoline inventories were seen rising, a Reuters poll showed ahead of the API report and government data on Wednesday. [EIA/S]

Core U.S. inflation data on Thursday will also be in the spotlight.

(Reporting by Nicole Jao in New York, Robert Harvey in London, Arathy Somasekhar in Houston and Emily Chow in SingaporeEditing by David Goodman and Marguerita Choy)

By Caroline Valetkevitch

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Global stock indexes fell and Treasury yields edged higher on Tuesday, with investors bracing for key U.S. inflation data this week and the start of fourth-quarter company earnings.

The dollar was mixed, while in cryptocurrencies, bitcoin fell but remained near its strongest level since April 2022 amid anticipation the Securities and Exchange Commission will approve spot bitcoin exchange-traded funds (ETFs).

All eyes will be on the U.S. consumer prices report for December, due on Thursday. It is expected to show headline inflation rose 0.2% in the month and by 3.2% on an annual basis.

Investors are looking for clues on when the Federal Reserve may begin cutting interest rates. Fed funds futures indicate a 64% probability of a March rate cut, down from 70% a week ago, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch Tool.

“We’ll be waiting for the inflation numbers and on Friday the earnings season begins with the big banks,” said Peter Cardillo, chief market economist at Spartan Capital Securities in New York.

But he also said there are likely investor jitters following news from Samsung Electronics Co Ltd. Samsung reported a likely 35% drop in fourth-quarter operating profit on Tuesday, much worse than analysts expected as weak consumer demand persisted in many of its businesses even as memory chip prices improved.

Results from some of the biggest American banks on Friday will unofficially kick off the U.S. earnings season.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 259.30 points, or 0.68%, to 37,426.78; the lost 19.48 points, or 0.41%, to 4,744.23; and the lost 56.65 points, or 0.38%, to 14,787.39.

Boeing shares were down 1.3% as the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board said late on Monday it could not yet tell whether a recovered cabin panel that blew off an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 plane during a flight last week had been properly attached.

The MSCI world equity index, which tracks shares in 49 nations, lost 0.37%, while European stocks were down 0.2%. Earlier, Japan’s Nikkei share average hit its highest level since March 1990.

Euro area unemployment data released on Tuesday came in below expectations.

The 10-year benchmark U.S. Treasury yield was up at 4.02%.

The dollar slipped 0.09% against the yen to 144.09. The euro was down 0.1% on the day at $1.0934, while the U.S. dollar index, which tracks the greenback against a basket of currencies of other major trading partners, was up 0.2% at 102.49.

The dollar index hit a five-month low in December, with investors betting the Fed will cut rates sooner rather than later.

In energy, U.S. crude ticked up 1.75% to $72.03 a barrel. Brent crude rose to $77.28 per barrel. Gold gained, with spot gold was up 0.4% at $2,035.19 per ounce.

(Additional reporting by Alun John in London and Scott Murdoch in Sydney. Editing by Sharon Singleton, Andrew Heavens and Jonathan Oatis)

By Robert Harvey

LONDON (Reuters) -Oil prices rose on Tuesday as the Middle East crisis and a Libyan supply outage reduced the previous day’s heavy losses.

Brent crude futures were up $1.07, or 1.41%, at $77.19 a barrel by 1515 GMT and U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude futures gained $1.12, or 1.58%, to $71.89.

At their intra-day peaks both benchmarks were up by more than $2 a barrel but prices have since cooled.

“On the supply side, there are some bullish factors from the closure of Libya’s largest oilfield, which has affected around 0.3 million barrels per day of oil production,” said Suvro Sarkar, energy sector team lead at DBS Bank.

In the Middle East, meanwhile, some major shipping companies are still avoiding the Red Sea after attacks by Iran-aligned Houthi militants in response to Israel’s war against Hamas.

Germany’s Hapag-Lloyd will continue to divert vessels around the Cape of Good Hope, it said on Tuesday.

The Israeli military has said its fight against Hamas will continue through 2024, worrying markets that the conflict could grow into a regional crisis that could disrupt Middle Eastern oil supplies.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Israeli leaders there was still a chance of winning acceptance from their Arab neighbours if they create a path to a viable Palestinian state.

Brent and WTI incurred 3% and 4% losses respectively on Monday after sharp cuts to Saudi Arabia’s official selling prices (OSP), prompting both supply and demand concerns.

“The question is whether the Saudi move of reducing OSPs to a 27-month low is also a sign of a potential increase in oil supply, implying serious discord within OPEC+,” said PVM analyst Tamas Varga.

But Saudi Arabia on Tuesday emphasised its desire to support efforts aimed at stabilising oil markets.

Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch added that the OSP cut “indicates a weakening of demand for oil in the three most important demand regions”.

German industrial production fell unexpectedly in November, according to the federal statistics office, marking a sixth consecutive monthly decline.

Investors are also awaiting U.S. inventory data from the American Petroleum Institute later on Tuesday.

Core U.S. inflation data on Thursday will also be in the spotlight.

(Reporting by Robert Harvey in London, Arathy Somasekhar in Houston and Emily Chow in SingaporeEditing by Jason Neely, Louise Heavens and David Goodman)