Oil prices drop more than 3 percent as investors take profits

By Keith Wallis

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Oil prices fell more than 3 percent in early Asian trade on Tuesday, with investors taking profits after Brent and U.S. crude soared over 8 percent in the previous session.

The surge was fuelled by an OPEC commentary saying the cartel was willing to talk to other producers to achieve reasonable oil prices, as well as by the downward revision of U.S. output data by the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA).

"(The OPEC comments) could be just a bit of politicking given the strategy to date looked to be all about market share," ANZ said in a market report on Tuesday.

"But it does suggest that many producers are likely to be hurting at these levels."

Revised EIA data published on Monday showed U.S. domestic oil production peaked at just above 9.6 million barrels per day (bpd) in April before falling by more than 300,000 bpd over the following two months.

Brent crude for October delivery had dropped $1.85 to $52.30 a barrel, or 3.4 percent, as of 0030 GMT after climbing $4.10, or 8.2 percent, in the previous session.

U.S. crude for October delivery dropped $1.86, or 3.8 percent, to $47.35 a barrel, after it settled up $3.98, or 8.8 percent in the previous session.

U.S. crude had climbed 27.5 percent in three days of gains, the largest three-day increase in dollar terms since February 2011 and the biggest percentage increase since August 1990.

Investors will be watching key data from China and the U.S. later on Tuesday to give further direction to prices.

That includes official and Caixin PMI data from China for August and manufacturing and vehicle sales data for August in the U.S. together with weekly oil stocks data from the American Petroleum Institute.

U.S. commercial crude stocks fell by 1.5 million barrels to 449.3 million barrels last week, according to a Reuters poll of analysts on Monday taken ahead of U.S. industry and government data.

(Reporting by Keith Wallis; Editing by Joseph Radford)