LONDON, Nov 11: Oil prices fell slightly in quiet trading on Tuesday as concern about a suicide bombing in Saudi Arabia continued to ebb away and traders focused on other matters.

The price of Brent North Sea crude oil for December delivery lost 19 cents to $28.80 per barrel.

New York’s reference light sweet crude December contract fell one cent to $30.87 per barrel in extremely quiet out-of-hours electronic trading during the US Veterans Day holiday.

Prices had briefly risen on Monday as traders took fright at the weekend blast at a housing compound in Riyadh that killed 17 people.

However they later flattened out, and analysts said the market was now considering other more technical factors.

“It looks like the market is retracing and regrouping ahead of (the Brent December) contract expiry on Thursday,” said GNI trader Rob Laughlin.

Market players were additionally looking ahead to weekly data for US energy stocks due out on Thursday, a day later than usual because of the holiday, said GNI’s Paul Goodhew.

Prices could creep up again, he predicted.

“Overall, the market is resilient to moving back down,” he said.

“I think the market still represents good value at these levels, and I think we will see $30 Brent by the end of the week.”—AFP