LONDON (Dow Jones)--Crude oil futures fell below $70 a barrel in London Wednesday, depressed by a broad U.S. dollar rebound and sharply lower equity markets. Fears over slackening global oil demand also weighed on market sentiment, overshadowing expectations for a potential production cut by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries when it meets Friday in Vienna. "The dollar is strong and stock markets are weak - [the selloff] could have more in it yet," said a broker based in London. At 1120 GMT, the front-month December Brent contract on London's ICE futures exchange was down $2.24 at $67.48 a barrel. The front-month December contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange was trading $2.74 lower at $69.44 a barrel. The ICE's gasoil contract for November delivery was down $15 at $673.50 a metric ton, while Nymex gasoline for November delivery was down 623 points at 162.96 cents a gallon. Crude oil prices pared gains from earlier in the week as the U.S. currency bounced while stock markets declined. "The dollar is strong, which weakens oil, and commodities are still tracking the stock market," the broker said. Market sentiment also took a hit from comments Tuesday by Bank of England Governor Mervyn King, who said "it now seem likely the U.K. is entering a recession" and it will take a "long, slow haul" to bring economic growth back to more normal conditions. Meanwhile, the bullish influence of potential OPEC production cuts dissipated as participants grew skeptical a rollback could shore up prices. "There is a lot of crude and demand is drying up," a broker in London said. Many analysts and market participants expect the producer bloc to rein in production by 1 million barrels a day or more. But some questioned the effectiveness of a cut at a time of slowing growth in industrialized countries and unprecedented financial market turbulence. "I don't think OPEC will change the current trend [lower]; they will try their best, though," another broker in London said. OPEC's member countries were unlikely to adhere strictly to any cuts, and would probably opt to produce over their quotas and gain revenue as prices swing lower, a broker said. "OPEC...are up against it here, they will cheat at these prices," the broker said. Looking ahead, participants were awaiting the U.S. Department of Energy's inventory snapshot due at 1435 GMT. A Dow Jones Newswires survey of analysts expected stocks to rise across the board - they forecast a 2.4 million barrel rise for crude, a 2.8 million barrel gain in gasoline and a 100,000 barrel rise in distillates.

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