LONDON (AFP) - World oil prices tumbled more than two dollars in New York, sliding below 50 dollars for the first time in nearly a month amid reports of higher Iraqi oil exports and easing fears over a Nigerian strike, analysts said.
New York`s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in December, plummeted 2.01 dollars to 49.75 dollars a barrel in early deals.
New York crude oil fell as low as 49.40 dollars, a 6.27-dollar, or 11.26-percent, drop from an all-time intra-day high of 55.67 dollars reached during electronic deals one week ago.
In London the price of Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in December dived 2.33 dollars to 46.65 dollars a barrel in late deals.
It hit an intra-day low of 46.50 dollars.
Alaron Trading analyst Phil Flynn said the slump was caused by news that Iraqi oil exports rose to the highest level since the war and that Nigerian oil workers had not yet decided on a strike.
"Apparently those two stories caused the market to sell off after a big rally," Flynn said.
He added it was too early to declare an end to the rally, which had pushed up prices by about two-thirds since the start of the year.
"Some people are speculating that it is and that the market is overdone," he said.
The deciding factor, he said, would be Wednesday`s release of US commercial inventories of crude oil, gasoline and distillates such as heating oil, which are crucial in the northern hemisphere winter.
"They (traders) are pricing in an awful lot of optimism on heating oil supplies before we have even got there," he said. "I don`t think it (the rally) is necessarily over."
Prices had risen earlier Monday as Nigerian unions began their build-up to a nationwide general strike, when senior labour leaders went to court to fight a bid by the oil giant Shell to prevent their members disrupting oil production.
Union leaders had Sunday announced plans for an indefinite general strike in Nigeria, Africa`s largest exporter of crude, to begin November 16.
Monday`s rollercoaster ride for prices came on the eve of the US presidential election and defied analysts` predictions for a cautious day`s trading.
"I think there is a lot of uncertainty about the election. It may be causing some volatility," Flynn said.
The International Petroleum Exchange (IPE) in London meanwhile saw a new timetable introduced Monday, with pit trading of Brent crude beginning at 2:00 pm (1400 GMT), rather than 10:00 am previously, in a move aimed at promoting its Internet-based dealing system.
IPE pit, or open cry, trading would continue to end at 7:30 pm, Monday to Friday.
Elsewhere, production at Kuwait`s three oil refineries, which came to a halt Sunday because of a power cut, resumed on Monday at 80 percent of capacity, the energy minister said.
Power was cut across the Gulf state on Sunday, causing a complete halt to refinery operation, although officials said crude oil output and exports were not affected.
Before recent slides, world oil prices had surged by about two-thirds since the start of 2004 on a number of factors, including violence in Nigeria, strike threats in major producer Norway, unrest in Iraq, hurricanes in the Gulf of Mexico and surging Chinese demand heading into the northern hemisphere winter.
Adjusted for inflation, however, prices remained well below the levels reached in the wake of the 1979 Iranian revolution when prices surged beyond the equivalent of 80 dollars a barrel in today`s money.
11/01/2004 - 18:15 GMT - AFP