By Florence Tan
SINGAPORE (Reuters) - Brent (brent.167)crude extended losses below $70 a barrel on Friday and was set for a second weekly fall, with top oil exporter Saudi Arabia cutting prices in another indication it would maintain output in an oversupplied market.
Saudi Arabia cut monthly prices for crude it sells to the United States and Asia, while Iraq is set to export more oil, preventing Brent from staging a recovery after a nearly 13-percent plunge last week.
"We're heading for $60 for Brent. (There is) nothing to stop it," said Tony Nunan, a risk manager at Mitsubishi Corp in Tokyo.
The January Brent crude contract
Saudi Arabia slashed its oil prices for Asian and U.S. buyers just a week after the kingdom refused to support OPEC output cuts.
"It's another sign that they want to maintain production levels," Nunan said.
The battle for market share is likely to heat up next year when Iraq starts to export more oil after Baghdad reached a temporary agreement with the Kurdish regional government.
Adding to supply, Libya is set to restart its largest oilfield, El Sharara, once a pipeline blockage is cleared.
A colder-than-expected winter may support oil, Nunan said, although prices are likely to slide after peak-demand season ends in the first quarter next year.
Oil prices are expected to rebound in the next two years from five-year lows this week as the market stabilizes, according to analysts in a Reuters monthly poll.
Brent will average $82.50 a barrel in 2015 and its premium to U.S. crude
The price plunge may put global oil and gas exploration projects worth more than $150 billion on hold next year, potentially curbing supplies by the end of the decade.
But lower prices could support global economic growth by boosting consumer purchasing power in the United States, said Jade Fu, investment manager at Heartwood Investment Management in London.
"We believe that the expected boost to the U.S. consumer from falling oil prices outweighs the risks to the energy sector," Fu said. "That's good news for global growth."
(Additional reporting by Manolo Serapio Jr.; Editing by Joseph Radford, Richard Pullin and Anupama Dwivedi)
