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NEW YORK: Oil prices slipped on Thursday, extending recent losses, amid persistent doubts about the pace of recovery from recession and signs of sluggish energy demand.
New York's main futures contract, light sweet crude for January, dipped 13 cents to close at 70.54 dollars a barrel, a low last seen in early October.
In intraday trade, the contract briefly dipped below 70 dollars.
In London, Brent North Sea crude for delivery in January fell 53 cents to settle at 71.86 dollars a barrel.
The New York contract has shed nearly eight dollars, or 10 percent of its value, in a seven-session losing streak.
New York trading was cautious against a backdrop of mixed macroeconomic reports, including a shrinking US trade gap, Italy's exit from recession and debt crises in Dubai and Greece.
Jason Schenker of Prestige Economics said that traders were feeling the stiff headwinds to recovery from the worst recession in decades.
"Market participants seem to be coming slowly to the realisation that a true recovery will take years," he said.
The dollar, holding steady on Thursday after firming in recent days, did not support a small rise in the price of the New York futures contract in opening trade.
"The sentiment pendulum has swung way towards pessimism," said MF Global analyst Mike Fitzpatrick, helping to drive oil down to 69.81 dollars during the session.
"We see 70 dollars a barrel as a floor below which prices should not traverse for sustained periods of time," Kevin Norrish of Barclays Capital said.
Oil prices had skidded on Wednesday after official data showed a bigger-than-expected rise in US stockpiles of refined fuel that renewed concerns about slack energy demand in the world's biggest economy.
Market sentiment was hit by the US Department of Energy's (DoE) latest weekly report on petroleum stockpiles, showing an unexpected rise in distillate stocks, by 1.6 million barrels in the week ended December 4, instead of a drop of 500,000 barrels forecast by most analysts.
Distillates include heating fuel, which usually sees rising demand at this time of year amid the start of northern hemisphere winter weather.
The DoE said US crude reserves fell by 3.8 million barrels last week but were 4.4 percent higher than their year-ago level and above the upper limit of the average range for this time of year.
Over the past four weeks, the US consumed on average 18.5 million barrels of petroleum products a day, a decline of 3.0 percent from the same period a year ago. - AFP/de
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