Oil prices fell today in the absence of cold weather in the US and Europe and despite a strike at Europe's biggest refinery.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in December, dropped 41 cents to $59.35 a barrel in pit trading. The contract had closed under $60 a barrel for the first time in three months yesterday.
In London this evening, the price of Brent North Sea crude for December delivery fell 24 cents to $57.86 a barrel in electronic deals.
Analysts said that every week of warmer temperature in the meantime will give refiners and importers time to build stocks of heating oil ahead of peak northern hemisphere winter demand.
Traders were looking to tomorrow's report from the US Department of Energy for a further reading on the US supply situation.
Assurances by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries of ample supplies during the winter helped also to keep prices in check, dealers said.
Meanwhile, striking workers of Royal Dutch Shell started scaling down the Anglo-Dutch oil group's key operations in the Netherlands, including the 416,000-barrel a day Pernis refinery. Over 1,500 workers at the Pernis plant, the largest in Europe and one of the biggest in the world, and the 900,000-tonne a year Moerdijk chemical facility, had joined the strike today.
The strike - the first faced by the Anglo-Dutch energy giant in The Netherlands since 1979 - was launched by the employees last night in a row with management over pension rights.
