CORRECTED-Oil steadies after price jump; investors wait on OPEC meetings

(Corrects distillate stocks to 3.1 million barrels, not 3.4
million, in final paragraph)
TOKYO, Dec 5 (Reuters) - Oil prices edged lower in muted
trading on Thursday ahead of the start of OPEC meetings later in
the day, steadying after the previous session's steep gains on a
sharp drop in U.S. crude inventories and expectations of more
output cuts.
Brent crude LCOc1 futures dipped 10 cents, or 0.2%, to
$62.90 a barrel by 0112 GMT. Brent surged 3.6% on Wednesday.
West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude CLc1 futures fell 22
cents, or 0.4%, to $58.21 a barrel. They settled up 4.2% on
Wednesday.
Prices are now back roughly to the levels of a week ago,
before they plunged on a lack of progress on resolving a
17-month-old Sino-U.S. trade war that has hit global growth and
demand for oil.
Investor attention has switched to meetings of the
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and
allies that start later on Thursday, and the possibility of more
production cuts.
The so-called OPEC+ group has been curbing output since 2017
to counter surging production from the United States, which is
now the world's biggest oil producer.
OPEC is aiming to push for deeper reductions in output but
needs the agreement of Russia and other oil producers to avoid a
supply glut next year, after demand growth slowed in 2019.
"The most likely outcome of the OPEC+ meetings this week is
an agreement to reduce production by another 300,000-400,000
barrels per day (bpd), conditioned on greater compliance by
countries that have failed to honour their commitment," Eurasia
Group said in a note.
OPEC members meet in Vienna on Thursday and are then joined
by Russia and the other members of the wider grouping on Friday.
OPEC+ has been withholding about 1.2 million barrels per day of
production.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Wednesday described trade
talks with China as going "very well," after the day before
saying it could take until after next year's presidential
election to complete an agreement. Oil prices surged on Wednesday after U.S. crude inventories
fell by much more than expected, according to official figures.
Crude stockpiles USOILC=ECI fell by 4.9 million barrels
last week, the Energy Information Administration said on
Wednesday, compared with expectations in a Reuters poll of a 1.9
million-barrel decline. EIA/S
Still, gasoline and distillate stocks surged by a similar
amount as crude's decline, with refinery runs increasing ahead
of winter stockpiling.
Gasoline stocks USOILG=ECI were up by 3.4 million barrel,
double expectations in the Reuters poll. Distillate inventories
USOILD=ECI jumped by nearly three times expectations, gaining
3.1 million barrels.