Oil prices went down upon the speculation natural gas stockpiles increase may ease concern over the Northern Hemisphere winter.

 

December crude was down 62 cents at $46.22 after 73 cents increase Wednesday on the New York Mercantile Exchange. London Brent crude oil slid 6 cents to $42.70.

 

On Thursday, the U.S. Energy Department said natural gas inventories fell by 168 million cubic metres in the past week to 92.99 billion cubic metres.

 

U.S. crude oil inventories rose 8.5% to 292.3 million barrels in the past eight weeks on rising imports and lifting production in the Gulf of Mexico, it added.

 

``The supply bottlenecks that pushed up oil prices to a record don't exist anymore. There's plenty of oil available around the world.'' said Kiran Trivedi, senior manager of international trade at Bharat Petroleum Corp. in Mumbai.