LONDON, Jan 28: World oil prices tumbled more than a dollar on Friday on increasing expectations that Opec would maintain output at a weekend meeting, analysts said.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in March slid $1.44 to $47.40 dollars a barrel in early deals. In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude oil for delivery in March dropped $1.34 to $45.10 a barrel in late deals.

"The building consensus is that Opec is not going to do anything on Sunday," said Deutsche Bank analyst Adam Sieminski, even though he believed a small cut could still be possible.

"I am leaning towards the idea that they will make a small cut (of 500,000 barrels per day) at this meeting and then if the price goes too high, they'll change that at the meeting in Iran in March."

Traders were Friday clinging onto comments by Opec president and Kuwaiti Energy Minister Sheikh Ahmad Fahd al-Sabah, who said the cartel would maintain current production levels of 27 million barrels per day (bpd) when it met in Vienna.

Analysts for the Sucden brokerage firm meanwhile noted that while other Opec ministers had said prices were currently too high to justify cutting production, traders remained wary of the cartel delivering a surprise.

Eswaran Ramasamy, a Singapore-based director for energy information provider Platts, said there could be some price weakening following forecasts for temperatures in the US north east to remain at zero, or slightly above zero, until next week after the region was battered by a howling snowstorm last Sunday.

"This shows the cold front has moved away, but still the market is waiting to see if there's a real change in the weather," he said. -AFP