The average price of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) basket of 11 crudes stood at 53.32 US dollars a barrel last week, down 0.78 dollars from a week earlier, the Vienna-based OPEC Secretariat said Monday.

The organization's oil prices have been declining for five consecutive weeks, loosing 8 dollars from the record high of 61.37 dollars per barrel on Sept. 1.

However, the secretariat's figures also showed that the OPEC's average oil price gained 1.1 dollars from 52.63 dollars a barrel last Monday to 53.73 dollars on Friday, while analysts warned that there was no room for the price to drop further.

In the United States, reports said 68 percent of the oil production capacity and 55 percent of natural gas production in the Mexico Gulf have not been recovered and that worries about an oil shortage have not been eased on the international market.

Meanwhile, OPEC's acting Secretary-General Adnan Shihab-Eldin said in Moscow on Monday that the organization has a spare production capacity of 2 million barrels per day to guarantee oil supply in winter.

Shihab-Eldin expected world oil prices to stabilize at a range of 45 to 55 dollars per barrel in 2006 and said OPEC would further increase its production capacity next year.

Source: Xinhua