MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Oil prices slip by 3%

Oil prices fell by more than US$2 a barrel yesterday and heating oil futures plunged to a 15-month low as traders looked ahead to mild weather in the US and supply data due out later this week that is expected to show rising inventories of crude.

Doubts about OPEC's ability to implement a 1.2 million barrels a day production cut also weighed on prices.

Last week, oil prices surged by US$2 a barrel after Energy Department data showed a large decline in US crude-oil inventories. But some analysts believe the market overreacted to the data by failing to account for the impact of a brief shutdown of the Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, through which 10 percent of all US oil imports flow.

??Everybody expects a correction this week,'' said Antoine Halff, an analyst at Fimat USA in New York who warned of the market's misinterpretation of the data in a report last week.

Oil traders are watching to see how quickly the 11 members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries move to cut production after announcing that as a group they would reduce output by 1.2 million barrels day.