World oil prices fell Friday as traders reacted to a decision by the Organization for Petroleum Exporting Coun-tries (OPEC) to hold output steady.
New York's benchmark light sweet crude contract for delivery in January dropped US$0.53 to US$30.73 a barrel. Brent North Sea crude for January fell US$0.49 to US$28.74.
OPEC ministers, meeting in Vienna, decided Thursday to maintain an oil production ceiling of 24.5 million barrels per day while considering a cut next year.
"It was mostly profit taking today," said Refco market analyst Marshall Steeves.
"The OPEC decision to maintain the quotas was bearish. They are going to wait until February, which means there won't be a cut in production before March 1."
Also, warmer winter weather was being forecast in the United States, the analyst said.
OPEC said in a statement it had decided to hold production steady because the market was "well supplied," but signalled a likely cut in the second quarter of next year to keep prices firm.
During that period a "significant supply overhang [is] expected to exert considerable pressure on oil prices", it said.
"Speculators had been concerned that OPEC might throw in a surprise decrease and they were very reluctant to run short positions," said Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein analyst Paul Spedding in London.
"Now as OPEC, as expected, has done nothing, you're just getting a removal of that premium," he said.
Attention was now turning to a likely cut next year, Spedding said.
"The big question will be how much of the quota cut they announce they will actually deliver, and given that several of the OPEC members are actually lobbying for higher quotas, the bulk of any cuts will in effect come from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the UAE [United Arab Emirates]," he said.
Meanwhile, several people were killed in fresh fighting between two rival ethnic groups in the swamps of Nigeria's oil-rich Niger delta, police said Saturday.
"We understand several people died but we are still investigating the incident," a police officer in Warri, the heart of the troubled region, told AFP by telephone.
He said the clashes flared on Friday when ethnic Itsekiri militants invaded some riverine Ijaw villages near Warri, killing and maiming villagers.
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