LONDON - World oil prices eased on Friday, a day after rocketing higher on frenzied speculative buying that was sparked by concern over tight supplies amid strong global demand.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in April, fell 12 cents to 53.45 dollars a barrel in electronic dealing.
Crude futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange had surged by as much as 2.15 dollars to 55.20 dollars a barrel during Thursday trading -- a level approaching the all-time high of 55.67 hit on October 25.
It later closed at 53.57 dollars, up 52 cents.
In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in April lost 20 cents to 51.75 dollars a barrel on Friday.
Brent had Thursday closed up 73 cents at 51.95 dollars a barrel after surging at one point by as much as 1.78 dollars to reach a new high point of 53 dollars.
The previous high had come on October 27, when Brent reached 51.94 dollars.
The surge came amid growing concern that the global economy was likely to need more oil to keep up with economic growth, and that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries may be keeping supplies tight, analysts said.
"I think that global demand is still being underestimated, by everybody," Investec analyst Bruce Evers said.
"Everybody likes talking about how strong demand is in China and India, but it is also extremely robust in northern Europe, in Brazil and North America."
With prices so high, Evers said OPEC was unlikely to cut production levels when it met later this month.
"With the price so high, I don't think they will do anything, they will maintain production as it is."
World oil prices have nearly trebled from about 20 dollars a barrel in New York at the start of 2002.
Adjusted for inflation, however, they remain far below the levels reached in the wake of the 1979 Iranian revolution, when prices surged to more than 80 dollars a barrel in today's dollars.
Oil prices could move as high as 80 dollars a barrel within the next two years but such a level would not last long, OPEC's acting secretary general was quoted as saying Thursday.
"I can affirm that the price of a barrel of crude oil rising to 80 dollars in the near future is a weak possibility," Adnan Shehab-Eldin told Kuwait's Al-Qabas newspaper.
"But I cannot rule out oil prices rising to 80 dollars a barrel within the next two years," he was quoted as saying.
"If the oil price rises to this level for one reason or another -- for example, interruption of supplies from a producing nation by one to two million barrels a day -- it is not expected to continue for long," Shehab-Eldin added.

03/04/2005 12:21 GMT