World oil prices fell sharply Monday on ample supply and downgraded global demand growth.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in April, lost 2.35 dollars to close at 60.42 dollars a barrel.

On London's ICE Futures exchange, the price of Brent North Sea crude for May delivery fell 1.92 dollars to close at 61.34 dollars a barrel.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange,the heating oil slipped 3. 96 cents to close to 1.7417 dollars a gallon as gasoline futures fell 3 cents to settle at 1.8301 dollars per gallon. Natural gas futures fell 21.8 cents to 6.835 per 1,000 cubic feet. Thanks to an expected contraction in US demand and downgraded growth forecasts in Asian countries, OPEC lowered its forecast Friday for global oil demand growth in 2006 by 110,000 barrels a day. OPEC set oil demand growth for this year at 1.46 million barrels a day and demand for the year at 84.5 million barrels a day.

International Energy Agency and the Energy Information Administration lowered their projected global demand too at earlier times.

The Department of Energy said Wednesday that U.S. crude oil inventories rose by 4.8 million barrels last week to 339.9 million barrels, or 10 percent above year ago levels, the highest level since April 1999.

Source: Xinhua