Oil down to $46 after nearly four-year low

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By Jane Merriman

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil pared some losses on Thursday after an early fall below $46 a barrel to its lowest in nearly four years, in response to the bleak outlook for the world economy and oil demand.

Oil prices have dropped more than $100 a barrel from an all-time high of $147.27 hit in July.

U.S. light crude for January delivery was down 64 cents to $46.15 a barrel by 1139 GMT (6:39 a.m. EST). It earlier touched a low of $45.30, the lowest since February 9, 2005.

London Brent crude was down 61 cents at $44.83.

Oil's fall since July has echoed the global economy's slide toward recession and tracked global stock market trends.

"With the oil market looking at equity markets for guidance, you need these to stabilize first before the oil market itself can recover," said Harry Tchilinguirian, analyst at BNP Paribas.

"Most days, you look at S&P futures (U.S. equity futures) in the morning and you get a hint of what crude futures will do," he said.

He said supply/demand factors such as OPEC supply cuts and winter demand did not appear to be on the agenda at the moment.

European central banks are expected to cut interest rates on Thursday to try to restore some vitality to their feeble economies. [nHKG108699]

Sweden's central bank has cut by a record 175 basis points, prompting speculation of dramatic cuts elsewhere.

Oil producer group OPEC will consider another round of output curbs to try to defend prices when it next meets on December 17 in Algeria.

"For sure we will cut in Oran (Algeria)," Qatar's oil minister Abdullah al-Attiya said on Wednesday.

Oil rose briefly on Wednesday when U.S. Energy Information Administration data revealed an unexpected fall in fuel inventories last week in the world's top energy consumer.

Crude stocks, for example, fell 400,000 barrels in the week to November 28, against an expected 1.7 million barrels build.

Stocks of gasoline and distillates, which include heating oil, also showed surprise falls.

But U.S. refinery utilization fell 1.9 percentage points to 84.3 percent of capacity against a predicted rise of 0.2 percentage point, pointing to weak demand.

"Refiners began to cut processing rates significantly," Jan Stuart, economist in New York for UBS, said in a report.

(Reporting by Jane Merriman in London and Maryelle Demongeot in Singapore; editing by William Hardy)

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