Oil hits four-year low near $82 on Saudi price changes

By Sam Wilkin

LONDON (Reuters) - Brent crude oil fell to a more than four-year low near $82 a barrel on Tuesday, after top oil exporter Saudi Arabia cut sales prices to the United States.

Front-month Brent crude touched a low of $82.08, its weakest since October 2010, and was down $2.10 at $82.68 a barrel by 1030 GMT.

U.S. light crude was down $2.20 at $76.58 a barrel. It touched a session low of $75.84, its weakest since October 2011, as its discount to Brent hovered around $6.

The Brent price plunged more than 50 cents below last month's low of $82.60 before recovering.

"We've been seeing some technical stop loss selling because the price has reached new lows," said Christopher Bellew, a broker at Jefferies in London.

The world's top exporter increased its December sales prices, relative to benchmarks, to Asia and Europe on Monday, but lowered prices to the United States, a smaller export market.

"This is mixed news, and the fact that the positive angle has not made an impact shows that market sentiment is very negative at the moment," said Eugen Weinberg, head of commodities research at Commerzbank in Frankfurt.

Daniel Ang of Phillip Futures said in a note that the move "signalled Saudi Arabia's intention to fight for U.S. market share and could even show its intention to squeeze U.S. shale producers".

But analysts at JBC Energy wrote that the pricing reflected market fundamentals and did not have a political motive.

"We would strongly advocate against interpreting every month's OSP publication in the context of 'price war' and 'market share battle' stories," they said in a note.

The absence of signs that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) could curb output in a well supplied market also continued to weigh on sentiment.

The oil cartel will meet on Nov. 27 in Vienna to discuss its output targets for next year.

Members Venezuela and Ecuador are working on a joint proposal to defend oil prices, but the United Arab Emirates oil minister said the group is "not panicking."

OPEC's secretary general last week said production next year would not vary much from 2014, and members Iran and Kuwait have said a cut in output at the next meeting was unlikely.

"The market sentiment will stay negative until OPEC appears to be unified," said Commerzbank's Weinberg. "Everybody is blaming each other but nobody is willing to cut."

There is a growing lobby in the United States to lift a 40-year ban on U.S. crude exports which if successful could ease a supply glut in the Atlantic Basin.

A stronger dollar was also weighing on oil prices, making the commodity more expensive for buyers using other currencies.

The dollar touched a four-year high on Monday, before slipping back slightly on Tuesday.

(Additional reporting By Jane Xie in Singapore; Editing by Christopher Johnson and Michael Urquhart)