LONDON, Oct 24: World oil prices fell sharply on Monday as Hurricane Wilma appeared to have missed energy facilities in the US Gulf of Mexico, analysts said. Global energy demand growth in 2006, meanwhile, would be further eroded by the high price of oil, which should however remain above $50 per barrel, the Centre for Global Energy Studies said in an influential report.

New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in December, dived 58 cents to $60.05 per barrel in pit trading on Monday.

Light sweet crude had slumped to $59.15 on Friday, the lowest level for three months. It has meanwhile lost more than 16 per cent of its value since hitting an historic $70.85 per barrel on August 30 after Hurricane Katrina battered US Gulf Coast oil facilities.

In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude for December delivery shed 48 cents to $58.00 per barrel in electronic deals on Monday.

“The market was back down almost a dollar and is expected to continue to weaken with Brent due to head to $55, and potentially $50 by the year-end depending on how cold the winter in the US and Europe turns out to be,” Sucden analyst Sam Tilley said.

Hurricane Wilma was downgraded on Monday to a Category Two hurricane, weakening as it moved along the coast of southern Florida.

The hurricane “missed the key oil production facilities in the Gulf of Mexico”, Tilley said.

Oil installations in the Gulf region were struck badly by Hurricane Katrina which made landfall on August 29.

Prices have since eased significantly on signs also of weakening demand and a build-up in petroleum reserves in the United States, the world’s biggest energy user.

Elsewhere, traders were keeping an eye on Iraq, where oil exports were completely halted by a combination of insurgent attacks in the north and bad weather in the south.

Exports from the southern oil fields had been running at as much as 1.6 million barrels per day (bpd) while exports from the north had stood at 300,000 to 400,000 bpd.—AFP