Oil slipped today to around $59 a barrel, pressured by expectations for warmer weather in the United States and supported by threats to supply in Nigeria.
Despite current chilly US weather that has lifted heating oil demand in the world's largest energy consumer, analysts are already looking beyond winter to spring, when consumption ebbs.
US crude for March delivery was down 37 cents at $59.02 a barrel and London Brent crude for April was trading down 14 cents at $58.81 a barrel, early this afternoon.
Activity is likely to be muted because floor trading in New York is closed on Monday for the Presidents' Day holiday, dealers said. Electronic trade remains open.
Oil jumped $1.40 on Friday after the United States warned that Nigerian militants plan to expand their attacks on foreign nationals beyond the oil-producing Niger Delta region.
Violence in the delta over the past year has already cut output from Africa's top producer by a fifth, and analysts fear it may escalate ahead of presidential elections in April.
Security sources said on Monday that three Croatian workers had been kidnapped in the oil city of Port Harcourt, raising to nine the number of foreigners held by different armed groups.
For the past two and a half weeks, oil has moved within a trading band of about $57-$60, a level that appears to satisfy many members of OPEC, which holds its next meeting on March 15.
Iranian Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh said on Saturday he did not expect another OPEC supply cut if prices kept rising, echoing comments from other ministers from the 12-nation group.
OPEC has lowered output by 1.7 million bpd in two stages starting Nov. 1 last year and Feb. 1 to prop up prices, though members have yet to implement the cutbacks in full.
Commodities experts at the World Bank believe stability in the Middle East would lead to oil falling back to about $45 a barrel, the Bank's chief scientist, Robert Watson, told Reuters on the sidelines of a conference in London.
