NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices fell from six-week highs on Wednesday as No. 5 world supplier Venezuela exported its first crude since a general strike paralyzed oil shipments.
Sharp gains in U.S. fuel inventories to feed winter heating needs further eased supply worries that on Tuesday pushed oil prices to their highest level since late October.
Traders kept a close eye on signals from OPEC ministers arriving for Thursday's meeting in Vienna, which will aim to tighten the Middle East-dominated cartel's adherence to formal output limits.
New York crude futures fell 34 cents, or 1 percent, to $27.40 a barrel, while Brent crude was 17 cents lower at $26.25 in London.
Prices fell as Venezuelan Oil Minister Rafael Ramirez said a total of four oil tankers were loading or had completed loadings at ports across the country, defying a 10-day strike by foes of President Hugo Chavez that had stopped oil exports.
About 40 ships were still waiting at Venezuelan ports without instructions to load. Venezuela normally supplies around 13 percent of the U.S.'s daily oil import needs.
"We've broken the blockade which was imposed upon us in the east in Zulia and we are dispatching oil to the whole world," Ramirez said, adding some of the cargoes were going to the United States.
State oil company Petroleos de Venezuela SA declared force majeure on the oil and product exports as tanker traffic ground to a halt.
Venezuelan crude oil production has in recent days been cut by two-thirds from November's level of about 3.1 million barrels per day (bpd).
STOCKS BUILD
Concern that the loss of Venezuelan deliveries could leave U.S. customers scrambling for supply eased as government figures on Wednesday showed a sharp rise in U.S. crude and refined product inventories last week.
Stocks of gasoline and distillates, including heating oil and diesel fuel, both rose by more than 3 million barrels in the week ended last Friday, the Energy Information Administration (EIA) said.
Supplies swelled as refiners ran hard to meet strong demand during a period of abnormally cold weather in the eastern United States.
U.S. crude stocks also rose, by 1.4 million barrels, a second consecutive weekly increase, but they remain 23.5 million barrels below the level last year at this time, the EIA said.
Venezuela's strike will loom large during OPEC's Thursday meeting, with leading world exporter Saudi Arabia keen to restore output discipline to combat weakening oil demand as world economic growth slows.
Saudi Arabia is proposing to restore output discipline by eliminating overproduction and increasing formal supply targets, made irrelevant in recent months by chronic quota-busting.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries now appears more worried about a possible glut next year than the threat of the price spike that could come if the United States launches an assault on Iraq.
The West's energy watchdog, the International Energy Agency, said on Wednesday accelerating Russian, U.S. and North Sea oil output growth give OPEC less room to raise supply next year, despite booming demand from China.
<http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=businessNews&storyID=1891260> -- Yoshie
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