* Oil falls back after revised EIA data shows less demand
* OPEC says "willing to go further" to balance market
* Labour action in UK, U.S. supports crude prices
(Updates prices, adds comment)
By Chris Baldwin
LONDON, Jan 30 (Reuters) - Oil futures pulled back from a $2
jump on Friday after U.S. GDP data showed the U.S. economy
shrank less than expected in the fourth quarter and OPEC
signalled it may again cut production.
By 1613 GMT, U.S. crude was up 44 cents a barrel at $41.88,
after earlier touching $43.44, while London Brent crude had
gained 67 cents to $47.10 after earlier reaching $47.75.
U.S. oil demand in November was 305,000 barrels per day less
than previously estimated and was down 1.577 million bpd from a
year earlier, the Energy Information Administration said on
Friday. []
"The EIA demand revision pulled crude off the high along
with the stock market pulling back alco," said Tom Bentz,
analyst at BNP Commodity Futures Inc. in New York.
Data earlier on Friday showed gross domestic product, which
measures total U.S goods and services output, fell 3.8 percent
in the fourth quarter, the steepest decline in nearly 27 years.
But the figures were better than the market's forecast for a 5.4
percent contraction. []
Crude was also supported by strong RBOB gasoline and heating
oil futures as February refined products contracts approached
expiry, a possible workers strike at some U.S. refineries at the
weekend, and word that OPEC may act again to cut production.
The producer group's secretary general told Reuters it was
willing to cut output further at its meetings in March.
"If the market is unbalanced, yes we will take measures to
balance the market," Abdullah al-Badri said at the World
Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland on Friday. []
The comments are a strong indication the Organization of the
Petroleum Exporting Countries, source of a third of the world's
oil, is willing to go further to stem oil's $100-a-barrel
collapse since June last year.
SHRINKING DEMAND
Oil has fallen nearly 11 percent over the past week but is
only down 6.8 percent from December, its smallest monthly
percentage fall since June 2008.
On Thursday oil fell 1.7 percent on data showing the U.S.
jobless rate rose to a record peak in January, single-family
home sales fell in December to their lowest ever and new orders
for durable goods tumbled for a fifth straight month.
Shrinking demand for fuel has also contributed to the
biggest four-month build-up in U.S. crude stockpiles since 1990.
Asia's outlook was equally bleak. Data showed Japan's
unemployment at a near three-year high and industrial output in
the world's third-biggest oil consumer plunging a record 10
percent last month. []
But traders said a possible strike by 30,000 U.S. refinery
workers who threatened on Thursday to shutter more than half of
the nation's oil refining capacity could support crude.
[]
In Britain, energy workers staged unofficial walkouts on
Friday when anger over the use of foreign workers at an oil
refinery spread to other sites across the country.
Contractors at Total's <TOTF.PA> Lindsey refinery in eastern
England began a protest on Wednesday. The dispute spread on
Friday, and hundreds walked out at the Grangemouth oil refinery
in Scotland run by Ineos Group [].
Total and Ineos have both said production has not been
affected.
(Additional reporting by Farah Master; editing by James Jukwey)
