LONDON - World oil prices fell below 54 dollars a barrel on Friday on easing supply concerns after having soared to record high points earlier in the week.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in May, dropped 56 cents to 53.55 dollars a barrel in electronic deals.
In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in May, lost 58 cents to 53.46 dollars a barrel.
London's International Petroleum Exchange moved to full-scale electronic dealing on Friday, ending a quarter of a century of pit, or open-cry trading.
Oil prices have fallen heavily since hitting record highs on Monday of 58.28 dollars a barrel in New York and 57.65 dollars in London.
New York futures accelerated their decline after the US government revealed Thursday that natural-gas reserves in the world's biggest economy grew last week for the first time in five months.
US stocks of natural gas went up 10 billion cubic feet (283 million cubic metres) to reach 1,249 billion cubic feet (35.37 billion cubic metres) on April 1, figures from the Department of Energy (DoE) showed.
The numbers came a day after the DoE said that US inventories of crude oil rose 2.4 million barrels to 317.1 million in the week to April 1, easing supply worries ahead the US summer driving season that starts in late May.
04/08/2005 09:45 GMT