Oil rises to $51 after steep slide; growth fears weigh

Oil edged up to $51 a barrel on Wednesday after reaching its lowest since June 2017 on perceptions that a price slide prompted by worries over the global economy had been overdone amid an OPEC-led effort to tighten supply. Crude has been caught up in wider financial market weakness as the U.S. government shutdown, higher U.S. interest rates and the U.S.-China trade dispute unnerved investors and exacerbated worries over global growth. "I think there is a little bit of over-extension to the downside linked to global market fears," said Olivier Jakob, analyst at Petromatrix.