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Oil down again in London
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December 29, 2000: 7:41 a.m. ET
Strong U.S. reserves outweigh cold weather to send crude lower
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LONDON (CNNfn) - Oil prices sank Friday as the likely restart of Iraqi exports and a healthy report on U.S. reserves outweighed the impact of cold northern hemisphere weather.
Benchmark Brent crude for February delivery slid 49 cents to $23.22 on London's International Petroleum Exchange Friday, extending the sharp fall in the commodity's price in the past three months. 
Brent has slumped $12 from a mid-October peak, finishing the year more than $2 lower than at the end of 1999. Over the whole year, though, it averaged almost $28.50 a barrel, up 58 percent from the previous year's average of $18.03.
The United States Department of Energy said Thursday that in the week ended Dec. 22, crude oil stocks fell 1.3 million barrels to 290.5 million barrels. However, that's 1.6 million barrels more than at the same time last year, the first time since April 1999 that there's been a year-on-year increase in stockpiles.
Iraq was expected later Friday to dispatch its first cargo from the Mediterranean since a dispute over pricing at the end of November halted deliveries. Shipments under the United Nations oil-for-food program resumed two weeks ago from the Gulf.
The slump in oil prices at the end of a year of unprecedented volatility has encouraged several OPEC members to call for a cut in production when the oil cartel meets on Jan. 17.
The cartel, which produces some 40 percent of the world's oil, raised production four times this year to try to take the steam out of overheating crude prices.
-- from staff and wire reports 
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OPEC
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