Oil prices held strong today not far below the $55-a-barrel mark as traders worried time is running out to top up low heating oil inventories before winter.
US light crude dipped 18 cents to $54.58 a barrel after setting a new all-time high yesterday of $54.88. London Brent eased 29 cents to $49.80 a barrel.
US Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan is due to give a speech on oil at 5 p.m. Irish time. Dealers are expecting some analysis of the impact of higher energy costs on the economic growth that has helped fuel this year's rise in crude prices.
Oil is up $20 in less than four months, lately spurred on by a US Gulf of Mexico production outage that has exacerbated a global shortage of light, low-sulphur crude that is easy to refine for transport and heating fuels.
About 470,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude production remains shut more than a month after Hurricane Ivan. Some fiels are expected to remain shut beyond the end of the year, the government's resource agency said this week.
The shortfall has impeded refiners' ability to build up US heating oil stocks which at 50 million barrels are 10 per cent below last year, weekly government data showed yesterday.