LONDON, Nov 24: IPE Brent crude oil futures fell more than $1 a barrel on Monday amid a bout of heavy selling by funds taking profit from last week’s rally, traders said.

By 1734 GMT, January Brent was trading $1.01 lower at $28.34 a barrel, down to a more than two-week low after breaking below support at last Tuesday’s low $28.65.

NYMEX January crude shed $1.23 to $30.35 a barrel, with dealers locking in gains ahead of the US Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday and Friday.

“It’s not down on any real news, more technical-type selling,” said a trader. “The funds are long, so we might be seeing a bit of fund selling.

Crude prices surged last week amid supply worries and bombings in Iraq and Turkey.

The latest report by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) released on Friday showed New York Mercantile Exchange crude oil speculators extended net long positions in a bet prices would rise. Barclays Capital said that as the data was collected on Tuesday when the NYMEX front month WTI was at its highest since before the Iraq war, the current fund long position was probably now considerably lower. The fundamental picture was little changed by predictions from tanker tracking consultancy Petrologistics that Opec oil producers excluding Iraq would cut production by 800,000 barrels per day (bpd) in November, almost in line with cuts agreed by the cartel,

The 10 Opec producers with quotas were seen producing 25.5 million bpd in November, one million bpd above a formal 24.5 million bpd production ceiling in place from November 1, the consultancy told clients.

Opec is due to meet on December 4 in Vienna to review its production policy.

Key support was pegged at last Tuesday’s low of $28.65, and below that at $28.60. Resistance was at $29.10 and $29.40.

Gas oil was also down from Friday’s $262 low and was trading $8.00 a ton lower at $254.50

The Brent/gas oil crack was at $5.13 and the Brent/WTI spread at $2.05.—Reuters