The May West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude oil futures contract on the New Yok Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) was trading at $38.48 per barrel (bbl) at 11:15 hours Tokyo time on Monday, down $1.88 from the closing price in New York last Friday while the June Brent contract on the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) was at $41.37/bbl, down $1.37. "The sharp drop in prices was mainly due to oil producers postponing a decision on a plan to freeze crude oil output levels," Tatsufumi Okoshi, a senior economist at Nomura Securities said. Okoshi was referring to an oil producer's meeting that took place in Qatar on Apr 17 to discuss the plan. Meanwhile, the Nikkei Stock Average lost 486.82 points in Monday morning trade moving down to 16,361.21 as the dollar depreciated to 107.89 to the yen.

RECX-22 index for Monday was at 67.62 points, down 0.11 points from Friday, dragged lower by the fall in crude oil prices.