by Perrine Faye
LONDON, Sept 8 (AFP) - Oil prices fell Wednesday as Iraq resumed pumping crude through a key northern pipeline, though supply concerns remained amid a fresh hurricane threat, analysts said.
The price of benchmark Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in October lost 25 cents to 40.51 dollars per barrel in late morning deals.
New York's reference contract, light sweet crude for October delivery, slid 42 cents to 42.89 dollars per barrel in pre-opening electronic trading.
"The world situation is more relaxed, notably over Iraq," said Societe Generale analyst Frederic Lasserre in Paris, adding that the resumption to oil exports from northern Iraq was "contributing to the fall in prices".
Pumping of Kirkuk crude oil from the northern Iraqi city to Turkey resumed Wednesday at a rate of 200,000 barrels per day (bpd) after sabotage attacks halted all exports last week, an official said.
"Pumping resumed at midnight on a spare line to Ceyhan" terminal in Turkey, said an official from the North Oil Co. on condition of anonymity.
"This is a first step immediately after we successfully put out the fire ignited by saboteurs" on September 2, he added.
Iraq has been exporting between 1.6 and 2.0 million bpd from its southern terminals.
Worries about Hurricane Frances meanwhile gave way to concern over Hurricane Ivan and the possibility that the fresh storm could disrupt supplies in the Gulf of Mexico.
"Traders are watching the storms progress as its projected route could take it into the Gulf of Mexico where it would have the potential to threaten much larger oil production facilities," analysts at the Sucden brokerage firm said.
Ivan knocked out power in Barbados on Tuesday and threatened eastern Caribbean islands, forecasters and emergency officials said.
Elsewhere, traders awaited publication Thursday of the latest weekly US commercial crude inventory data, and looked ahead to next week's OPEC meeting.
"We should see more crude available in the short term," Lasserre said, noting that Saudi oil produced at the end of July should start to show up in US and European inventories.
Regarding oil price levels meanwhile, OPEC president Purnomo Yusgiantoro Wednesday blamed a "political premium" of 10-15 US dollars per barrel for the current cost of crude.
Speaking ahead of a meeting next week by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries to discuss output policy, Yusgiantoro said that although the cartel was exceeding its supply quotas, the market was not responding.
"According to our view based on the fundamentals -- supply and demand values -- the price should not be as high as what we see today," he told reporters at the 19th World Energy Congress in Sydney.
"What we see is a political premium between 10-15 dollars per barrel."