Oil Slips As Us Govt Monitors Supplies

London December futures for international benchmark Brent crude traded down 14 cents at $23.80 a barrel.

Brent for November earlier this week broke $25 for the first time in nearly six years in a scare over a possible shortage of heating oil supplies in the West this winter.

Talk that the US government might intervene to protect heating oil consumers this winter, possibly by encouraging a clampdown on exports, had helped undermine prices, dealers said.

High European prices have allowed traders to make money by selling more than a million tonnes of heating oil from US markets to European buyers over the past two months.

 

The exports have exacerbated US inventory shortfalls, running 40 per cent down on last year in the key northeast region and 10 per cent below normal across the whole country.