Oil prices stabilized Tuesday on lack of fresh news after climbing nearly a dollar on threats of violence in Nigeria and a suggestion that OPEC may need to further cut its output.

Light sweet crude for December delivery dropped 2 cents to US$60.00 a barrel in midafternoon Asian electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Prices had gained 88 cents in Monday's trading after armed protesters shut down a Nigerian oil pumping station. December Brent crude on London's ICE futures exchange lost 9 cents to US$59.66 a barrel.

"Traders are still looking for clues for clear direction," said Ken Hasegawa, an analyst with Himawari CX in Tokyo.

Oil prices have retreated significantly from a summertime high above US$78 a barrel, trading in a range of around US$57-US$61 a barrel over the past month as traders look for demand clues in weather and economic forecasts and weigh them against OPEC's plans to curb supplies by 1.2 million barrels a day.

Some members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries are concerned that prices have already fallen far enough from their July peak above US$78 a barrel.

OPEC President Edmund Daukoru, also Nigeria's oil minister, said the oil cartel may need to further cut its output but that it doesn't have a specific price floor or band that it wants to defend.

"OPEC doesn't have a rigid floor," Daukoru told reporters Tuesday during a visit to South Korea. Setting a target price band "is not really applicable to the fluid, free market."

"The market is clearly oversupplied, clearly oversupplied," Daukoru said a day earlier.

Daukoru described the current price of oil as "low." Regarding OPEC's decision last month to cut production effective Nov. 1, he said the effects of the reduced output have yet to be seen, but would be soon.

Daukoru told reporters that when OPEC meets in December they will discuss production, "but it looks as if some further mopping up will be necessary."

In Nigeria on Monday, protesters invaded an oil pumping station in southern Bayelsa State and forced workers to shut it down. The facility is run by Agip, a subsidiary of Italian energy company ENI SpA.

Since the beginning of the year, militants have taken dozens of oil workers in the southern oil region hostage. The violence has pared about one quarter from Nigeria's normal 2.5 million barrel daily production.

Last week, U.S. crude oil inventories rose by 2 million barrels to 334.3 million barrels. Demand is currently low as the cold winter season in the Northern Hemisphere has yet to set in.

In other Nymex trading, heating oil futures fell less than half a cent to US$1.7135 a gallon, and unleaded gasoline futures dropped marginally to US$1.5230 per 1,000 cubic feet. Natural gas futures fell 12.1 cents to US$7.369 per 1,000 cubic feet.