NEW YORK (AFP) - World oil prices fell, capping a drop of more than 14 percent in a two-and-a-half-week slide triggered by a perception of growing US crude oil inventories.
New York's main crude oil contract, light sweet crude for delivery in December, fell 10 cents to 47.32 dollars a barrel. It is now down 14.2 percent since October 17.
Brent North Sea crude for December fell 71 cents to 42.31 dollars, taking its losses since October 17 to 17.9 percent.
Fimat USA analyst John Kilduff said the market was attempting to consolidate but the fact it failed to perform a now-regular pre-weekend price bounce was bearish,
Traders had overcome nerves about a strike in oil-rich Nigeria week, he said.
"It is always a troubling situation for the market but at this point traders are more focused on heating oil inventory levels and crude oil inventory levels," he said.
A weekly snapshot of US commercial crude oil inventories, due November 17, would likely show another increase in stockpiles," he said.
"Unless the strike evolves into something more than what we've seen recently, we should be able to pretty much brush it off. But we'll watch it," Kilduff said.
Nigeria's main oil unions on Thursday said their members would join next week's planned nationwide strike and warned of disruptions to crude exports.
A Nigerian court declared the stoppage, due to begin next Tuesday, illegal.
With exports of 2.5 million barrels per day, Nigeria is Africa's biggest oil producer and the sixth largest in the world. Its sweet, light crude is ideal for refining into gasoline, or petrol, and it supplies around 15 percent of US oil needs.
"If they actually shut in the crude production, I think we'll see a spike in prices," said Graham Sharp, director of energy trading at brokerage firm Trafigura in London.
US government data released Wednesday showed that crude oil inventories had increased by 1.8 million barrels to 291.5 million in the week to November 5, helping to offset a further drop in stockpiles of heating oil.
Tetsu Emori, chief commodities strategist at Mitsui Bussan Futures, said he maintained his projection for oil to hit 63 dollars by the end of December or early January because of anticipated higher demand for winter heating fuel.
"People are in a wait-and-see mood regarding the demand-supply balance during the northern hemisphere winter," he said in Tokyo.
"This is kind of a correction (period) before prices go up in winter."
Emori added that despite rising crude oil inventories, US refineries have their hands full coping with demand.
"If we look at the demand for heating oil, we have to remember again the bottleneck at refineries in the United States," he said.
"I don't think the United States has enough to supply the country's heating oil needs."
11/12/2004 - 22:20 GMT - AFP