LONDON, Oct 18: World crude prices slid on Wednesday, the eve of an Opec output meeting in Doha, after rebounding earlier on news of a surprise plunge in US heating fuel stocks, dealers said.

The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries was set on Thursday to unveil details of a planned 1.0 million barrel-per-day (bpd) output cut, which is aimed at stemming recent heavy losses to the price of oil.

New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in November, fell 28 cents to $58.65 per barrel in pit trading on Wednesday.

In London, Brent North Sea crude for December delivery sank 32 cents to $60.62 per barrel in electronic trading.

Over the past two weeks, mixed signals from Opec have helped to drive down crude prices, which have now lost around 25 per cent since striking record highs in July and August.

The US Department of Energy (DoE) said on Wednesday that levels of distillate products, such as heating fuel and diesel, tumbled 4.5 million barrels to 145.4 million in the week to October 13.

That was far more than the fall of 800,000 barrels expected by analysts, and came after heavy early snowfalls in the US northeast sparked a spike in demand for heating fuel.

Gasoline or petrol stocks went down 5.2 million barrels to 210.2 million, compared with expectations of a 200,000-barrel decline.

Crude oil inventories rose 5.1 million barrels to 335.6 million over the past week, in which several US refineries were down for maintenance ahead of the winter peak for heating oil. Analysts had expected a rise of 1.5 million.

“The data is quite bullish ... with a big draw in products which overall pulled the market higher,” said Bache Financial trader Tony Machacek.

Prices also found limited support after Norway's leading oil firm Statoil halted production at a second oil platform off the Norwegian coast due to adverse weather conditions, resulting in an output loss of 140,000 bpd.

Another bullish factor for the market came from Opec member Venezuela, which said it had lowered output by 50,000 bpd, as of October 15, bringing its total reduction this month to 100,000 bpd.—AFP