World oil prices slumped today as supply concerns eased over major crude producers Iran.
The drop in prices comes at the end of a week in which crude futures had surged $3 per barrel on supply worries in these countries and owing also to falling stockpiles of US petrol.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in May, fell $1.45 to $65.70 per barrel in pit trading. In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude for May delivery lost 77 cents to $65.69 per barrel in electronic trade.
Traders said prices started to fall today after Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said that Tehran would not use its oil supplies as a lever in the dispute with Western countries over its controversial nuclear programme.
Iran refused yesterday to comply with a UN Security Council demand to freeze uranium enrichment, defying a warning from major world powers which fear that the Islamic republic secretly wants to develop an atomic bomb.
Elsewhere, traders tracked developments in Nigeria, Africa's biggest producer of crude. Nigerian troops have engaged separatist militants in a fierce gun duel in the swamps of the Niger Delta, leaving some fighters dead, an army spokesman said today. The fighting was the latest between ethnic Ijaw militants and soldiers of the Joint Task Force set up to protect oil facilities in the troubled region.
Nigeria has seen its crude output cut by more than 20% as a result of recent attacks on oil installations in the Niger Delta.
Supporting prices also has been government data showing that US petrol inventories fell sharply last week ahead of the summer driving season, beginning in May, when American drivers take to the roads on holiday.
