LONDON, Dec 24: Oil prices fell on Friday in thin trading as dealers prepared for a long Christmas holiday weekend. In London, Brent North Sea crude for February closed down 61 cents to $40.10.

The market here closed exceptionally at 1300 GMT because of the Christmas holiday and was not set to reopen until next Wednesday.

Monday and Tuesday are public holidays in Britain. New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in February, shut Thursday until Monday. It ended Thursday down six cents at $44.18.

Despite the losses, oil prices in London remained supported by concerns about low US crude stockpiles with winter firmly underway in the northern hemisphere. Possible supply disruptions in Iraq and Nigeria were worrying traders also and were factors expected to affect prices in quiet trading next week.

"A lot of it will be temperature driven," Bache Financial trader Christopher Bellew said. "If we get warm weather and no supply disruptions in the Middle East, we'll probably see the market coming down. Otherwise it's got the potential to go up if the weather is cold and if there are strikes in Nigeria or supply problems out of Iraq."

Prices tumbled by nearly $2 on Wednesday when the Department of Energy said US commercial crude oil inventories had unexpectedly climbed 2.1 million barrels to 295.9 million in the week ending December 17.

Distillates - mostly heating fuel and diesel - rose 600,000 barrels to 119.9 million, surprising analysts who had predicted a drop. Traders meanwhile continued to digest news that community unrest in the Niger Delta had forced oil giants Shell and Chevron Texaco to suspend exports totalling 134,000 barrels of oil per day from Nigeria, Africa's largest producer of crude. -AFP