September 16, 2003	Tuesday	Rajab 18, 1424

LONDON, Sept 15: Oil prices eased back on world markets on Monday in trade driven largely by technical factors, traders said.

The price of Brent North Sea crude oil for October delivery dipped to $26.69 in late London trading from $26.77 at the close of the previous session.

New York’s reference light sweet crude October contract lost 30 cents to $27.97 per barrel in early deals.

Prices fell ahead of the expiry of the Brent October contract in London at the close of Monday’s session.

“The market is continuing in its weakness, with any selling due to technical factors,” said GNI trader Keith Pascall.

But though the technical picture overall looked poor, prices were unlikely to fall much further from here, said Barclays Capital analyst Kevin Norrish.

“There’s been a substantial amount of fund liquidations in crude oil. They must now be running short positions,” he said.

“So because of that, and because of the low levels of stocks, we shouldn’t see much further downside from here and we probably look for crude prices to recover.”—AFP