Oil prices dipped today but held near the previous day's record high above $80 a barrel.
US crude traded 25 cents lower at $79.66 a barrel earlier, after climbing $1.68 yesterday, when it hit a record of $80.18. London Brent crude shed 15 cents to $77.53.
Dealers are watching a tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico after a sharp fall in US crude stocks.
Prices have climbed 31 per cent this year and have quadrupled since 2002, as investors buy into worries over real and potential supply disruptions in producers such as Nigeria and Iran, growing consumer demand and infrastructure constraints.
US crude stocks fell a hefty 7.1 million barrels last week to their lowest level in eight months ahead of the winter heating season, government data released yesterday showed.
Adding to supply concerns, Tropical Storm Humberto formed in the Gulf of Mexico, home to a quarter of US oil output, shutting the Houston shipping channel and spurring worries offshore production could be shut down.
Experts said Opec's deal in Vienna on Tuesday to raise output by a half million barrels per day starting November 1st was not enough to reverse rising energy prices.
Opec sees efforts by consumer nations to promote alternative fuels as posing risks of a fall in world oil demand in the long term, an official of the exporter group said today.
Mohamed Hamel, head of the energy studies department at Opec's Vienna headquarters, also said strain on the world's oil refineries - a factor in driving prices to record highs above $80 a barrel - would persist for at least the next three years.
