LONDON, Nov 8: World oil prices fell further on Tuesday, with mild weather set to persist across the northeast of the United States until early next week, reducing consumers’ need for heating fuel.

New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in December, dropped 22 cents to $59.25 per barrel in pit deals.

In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude for December delivery lost 51 cents to $57.53 per barrel in electronic trading.

Both contracts had closed more than $1 lower on Monday, also owing to signs of a recovery for US energy operations that were severely disrupted by recent hurricanes.

“Unusually mild weather in the US northeast continues to weaken consumer demand,” Sucden analyst Sam Tilley said on Tuesday.

New York’s main contract has now fallen more than 16 per cent since reaching a record high of $70.85 on August 30, the day after Hurricane Katrina struck the southern United States and severely damaged the country’s major oil installations.

“The market is caught between a bearish short-term demand picture with temperatures in the main US northeast heating oil region expected to stay well above average for the rest of the week, and concern about the potential for shortages still to develop,” Barclays Capital analyst Kevin Norrish said.

Private forecaster Meteorlogix said temperatures in the US northeast, the world’s largest heating oil market, were expected to remain well above normal until at least Tuesday of next week.

“Temperatures have been unusually mild in the United States... in the very short-term, the bearish trend should continue in the absence of unexpectedly-supportive factors,” French bank Societe Generale said.

Weighing also on prices was a recovery for US output.

The latest data from the US Mineral Management Service showed that 51.5 per cent of US oil production in the Gulf of Mexico remained shut down, an indication of some improvement from last week. Some 44.8 per cent of natural gas output was closed.

“Oil and gas facilities in the US Gulf Coast of Mexico are also coming back online faster than expected and this is adding further downward pressure” to prices, Tilley said.

The International Energy Agency said on Monday that the world has enough energy until 2030, on condition that there is sufficient investment in the supply chain.

Two thirds of a more than 50 per cent rise in energy demand over the next 25 years would come from developing countries, the IEA predicted in its World Energy Outlook report for 2005.—AFP