LONDON (AFP) - World oil prices hovered close to record high points approaching 55 dollars a barrel, as traders fretted about low inventories of US heating fuel heading into winter in the northern hemisphere.
The price of reference light sweet crude for delivery in November rose Friday by seven cents to 54.83 dollars a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
New York's main oil contract soared to an all-time intra-day high of 54.88 dollars a barrel Thursday, also reaching a record closing price of 54.76, a rise of 1.12 dollars.
In London Brent North Sea crude oil for December delivery lost nine cents to 50.00 dollars in early deals on Friday. The contract for November, which expired Thursday, hit a record 51.50 dollars a barrel earlier in the week.
New York's oil price raced to a record high Thursday as news of a decline in US heating oil inventories rattled traders with colder weather approaching.
"The market fears that the US is running out of time to build winter fuel supplies, which are also short in Europe and Asia," analysts at the Sucden brokerage firm said.
Inventories of distillates -- mostly diesel and heating oil -- dropped 2.5 million barrels to 120.9 million in the week to October 8, the US Energy Department said, showing the effect of production and refinery problems in the Gulf of Mexico caused by recent hurricanes.
Heating oil inventories, in high demand in the northern hemisphere winter, declined 1.2 million barrels to 50.0 million. Diesel fell 2.1 million barrels to 68.2 million.
"Distillate stocks (at) 8.1-percent lower than last year feed fears of heating oil shortages this winter," Societe Generale analyst Deborah White said in Paris.
French Transport minister Gilles de Robien meanwhile warned Friday that the current high price of oil could strip 0.5 percentage points from France's economic growth.
If the price of oil remained at current high levels, the government might need to revise its 2005 forecast of 2.5 percent gross domestic product growth, he said.
"If it carries on like that, the rise in oil (prices) affects growth and we could lose a half point of growth," de Robien told Europe 1 radio.
World oil prices have more than doubled from about 20 dollars a barrel in New York at the start of 2002, surging by about 65 percent since the start of this year.
Adjusted for inflation, however, they remain far below the levels reached in the wake of the 1979 Iranian revolution when prices surged to upwards of 80 dollars a barrel in today's money.