Oil prices fell today on profit-taking after a freezing winter across the northern hemisphere helped push them to 14-month highs overnight.
New York's main futures contract, light sweet crude for February delivery, shed 32 cents to $82.86 a barrel and was on course to end lower for the first time in 10 sessions. The US benchmark oil rose to an intraday peak of $83.52 yesterday, its highest since October 9, 2008.
Brent North Sea crude for February fell 30 cents to $81.57 in London trading.
The cold spell sweeping across the northern hemisphere has pushed up prices but investors today were looking at signs of weakening energy demand in the US, the world's biggest oil user, analysts said.
A weekly report by the US Department of Energy yesterday showed that crude oil reserves rose 1.3 million barrels in the week ending January 1, instead of the expected drop of some 300,000 barrels.
Stockpiles of distillates - including heating fuel and diesel - fell 300,000 barrels in the week, much less than the average analyst forecast of a drop of 1.8 million barrels amid cold weather across sections of the US.
