LONDON (Commodity Online) : World oil prices recovered slightly in Europe on fresh tensions in the Korean peninsula, before losing steam on weak stocks and a still strong dollar.
Light sweet crude for January delivery fell as much as 84 cents, or 1 percent, to $80.90 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange before climbing back to $81.28 in early trade.
The contract fell 24 cents to settle at $81.74 on Monday. Brent crude for January settlement dropped as much as 86 cents, or 1 percent, to $83.10 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange.
Analysts said the black gold recouped some losses on reports of tensions between South and North Korea
However, due to weak stocks across Europe and Asian stock markets and the strong dollar continued to keep pressure on oil, they said.
Other analysts are less optimistic about a rise in oil demand in the U.S. and Europe. National Australia Bank expects crude prices to average in the $80s in every quarter through 2012.
In other Nymex trading in December contracts, heating oil fell 1.27 cents to $2.2559 a gallon and gasoline dropped 2.45 cents to $2.1274 a gallon. Natural gas slid 2.6 cents $4.245 per 1,000 cubic feet.
