Crude oil prices fell from a six- week high Monday as brokers grew confident that inventories were sufficient to meet growing demand.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange (Nymex), light, sweet crude oil futures for July delivery fell 54 cents to end at 54.49 dollars a barrel. Meanwhile, on London's International Petroleum Exchange, the July Brent crude-oil futures contract declined 50 cents to settle at 53.67 dollars per barrel.

After US Department of Energy reported last week that US oil stockpiles had risen in 14 of the last 16 weeks, and the International Energy Agency lowered its oil consumption forecasts for 2005, brokers began to speculate that oil supplies would be enough to meet surging fuel consumption.

However, crude oil futures remained 42 percent higher than a year ago in the Nymex. High oil prices still pressured on some sectors, such as airline and transportation services.

Source: Xinhua