By Myra P. Saefong & Polya Lesova, MarketWatch SAN FRANCISCO (MarketWatch) -- Crude-oil futures fell below $58 per barrel Wednesday morning, ready to extend their decline to a second session as concerns about a sharp slowdown in demand pushed prices to a fresh 21-month low. "This market just keeps going to a new low," said Darin Newsom, a senior analyst at DTN. Prices "could soon be testing the projected $55 level." "In general, pressure continues to come from weakening financial markets," he said. And "weakening world economies means lower world demand." Crude oil for October delivery fell $1.98, or 3.3%, to $57.35 a barrel in electronic trading on Globex. Earlier, it hit an intraday low of $57.04 a barrel, the lowest front-month contract level seen since late January of 2007. The contract lost 4.9% on Tuesday. A combination of factors -- weak global macroeconomic data as well as a fresh retreat in the U.S. stock market -- is serving to "undermine the case for commodities," said Edward Meir, an analyst at MF Global. See Market Snapshot. "There is nowhere for longs to hide in practically any of the markets; base metals are hovering just above their late October lows, while the U.S. stock market has given up about half of its recent two-week gains," Meir said in a note to clients. Also Wednesday, the International Energy Agency dismissed fears about "peak oil" but said a lack of sufficient investment in energy production could give rise to output troubles. "Although global oil production is not expected to peak before 2030, conventional crude-oil production is projected to level off toward the end of the projection period," it said. The IEA published the full report on its world energy outlook after releasing a summary last week. Meanwhile, the Organization of the Petroleum Countries hinted at the possibility of further production cuts. Odein Ajumogobia, Nigeria's oil minister, told Reuters Wednesday that OPEC needs to assess whether there is need for an output cut because the 1.5 million-barrel cut that was announced in October and began on Nov. 1 had no effect on the market. Crude futures have dropped more than 7% to the $57.33 closing level on Tuesday from $64.15 close on the day of OPEC's last meeting on Oct. 24. "OPEC is getting nervous and that means a knee-jerk reaction to crude under $60 is a real possibility," said Kevin Kerr, editor of Global Commodities Alert at KerrAlert.com. "OPEC may well be getting tired of low oil prices." Still, Newsom dubbed OPEC's comment as "same old, same old." It "still doesn't address lower demand," he said. Prices for petroleum products on Globex edged lower along with crude Wednesday. December reformulated gasoline fell 2.6 cents to $1.28 a gallon and December heating oil shed 5.3 cents to $1.8766 a gallon. The average U.S. retail price for a gallon of regular gasoline stood at $2.202 Wednesday, down about 2 cents from Tuesday and down just over $1 from a month ago, according to AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge Report. Natural gas for December delivery fell 10.4 cents, or 1.5%, to $6.601 per million British thermal units. Delays for weekly supply data Energy traders don't have one of their usual Wednesday data points. The Energy Information Administration will release its weekly data on U.S. petroleum supplies on Thursday at 11 a.m. Eastern, a day late because of the Veterans Day holiday. Analysts at MF Global expect the figures covering the week ended Nov. 7 will show a buildup of 1.4 million barrels in crude inventories. They also expect to see increases of 400,000 barrels for distillate supplies and 1 million barrels for motor gasoline. On average, industry analysts polled by Platts expect to see increases of 1.1 million barrels for crude, 1 million barrels for distillates and 850,000 barrels for motor gasoline. The EIA also will delay its release of the weekly natural-gas supply data by a day, to Friday at 10:30 a.m. EST. Analysts at IHS Global Insight expect gas in storage to have risen by 40 billion cubic feet for the week ended Nov. 7. Among other commodities, gold prices dropped as much as $16 an ounce. See Metals Stocks. The Reuters/Jefferies CRB Index , a benchmark gauging the prices of major commodities, fell by 1.3% to 248.69 points.

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