Crude oil fell on speculation that US refineries will have little trouble building up inventories that dropped to a 19-month low last week.
The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, the biggest US import terminal, said it may resume operations later today after shutting down for Hurricane Lili. There should be ample supplies available for importers, traders said. Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries exceeded their output quotas by about 10 percent in September, a Bloomberg survey showed.
"There will be plenty of imports in the next couple of weeks, especially with OPEC's increased cheating," said Phil Flynn, a senior energy trader at Alaron Trading Corp in Chicago.
"We can expect a short-term fall in inventories but supplies should rise as imports increase."
Crude oil for November delivery fell US$0.14, or 0.5 percent, to US$29.62 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.
Prices were down 3 percent this week.
In London, the November Brent crude-oil futures contract fell US$0.14 to US$28.12 a barrel on the International Petroleum Exchange.
Royal Dutch/Shell Group and ChevronTexaco Corp were among the companies returning staff to offshore crude-oil production platforms today.
Daily production from the 10 OPEC members with quotas, all except Iraq, rose for a seventh consecutive month in September, gaining 430,000 barrels to 24.02 million barrels, the survey yesterday of oil producers, companies and analysts showed. The total was 2.32 million barrels above the group's daily quota of 21.7 million barrels.
OPEC members pump about a third of the world's oil.
US crude-oil inventories tumbled 13.9 million barrels to 275.9 million barrels in the week ended Sept. 27, the American Petroleum Institute said. The decline was the biggest since January 1999 and came as Tropical Storm Isidore disrupted production and imports during the week.
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