Oil price flat below $89 in Asian trade

In Monday morning trade, New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in March, was three cents lower at USD 88.93 a barrel.

On Friday the contract plunged USD 2.79 to close USD 88.96 per barrel, after briefly rising into positive territory following OPEC's widely-expected decision to leave its output quotas unchanged.

It was the first time this year that the New York benchmark contract closed below the psychological USD 89 level.

Brent North Sea crude for March delivery was two cents higher at 89.46 dollars a barrel after settling USD 2.77 lower at USD 89.44 a barrel in London on Friday.

At its meeting in Vienna on Friday, the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), which pumps 40 percent of world oil, held its official daily output at 29.67 million oil barrels.

Shortly after OPEC's announcement, fresh US economic data led to renewed fears for economic growth in the world's biggest energy consumer.

A US government report showed the economy lost 17,000 non-farm jobs in January.

It was the first jobs loss in more than four years and indicated the strains from a housing crisis and a related credit crunch were spreading through the world's biggest economy, analysts said.

There may have been some reassessment of energy demand after the US data release, along with some profit-taking, said David Moore, a commodities strategist with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney.

Source: DDNEWS