* Financial crisis strengthens demand fears
* OPEC to hold emergency meeting on Nov. 18
(Updates prices, adds U.S. deposits)
By Annika Breidthardt
SINGAPORE, Oct 10 (Reuters) - Oil prices fell five percent
to $82 a barrel, a one-year low, as fears that market turmoil
will send demand for fuel slumping outweighed news that OPEC
will hold an emergency meeting in November.
With the financial crisis now almost a month old, Japan's
Nikkei stock index <> plunged nearly 11 percent on Friday,
while the yen and gold rose on growing concerns that no
government effort so far has kept the global economy from a
path to recession.
Investors, who earlier this year piled into oil and other
commodities as a hedge against inflation and the weak dollar,
are putting cash into safer havens and have sent oil plummeting
by more than $60 from its record high above $147 in July.
U.S. light crude for November delivery <CLc1> fell $4.16,
or 4.8 percent, to $82.43 a barrel by 0503 GMT, just above its
earlier low of $82.00, in its biggest two-week decline since
the start of the Iraq war in 2003.
London Brent crude <LCOc1> shed $3.71 to $78.95 a barrel,
the first time it has been below $80 in a year.
"The decline in oil prices was despite OPEC indicating that
it will hold an extraordinary meeting on 18 November," said
David Moore, a commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of
Australia.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries said
it would hold the emergency meeting in Vienna to discuss the
impact of the financial crisis on the oil market.
The statement came after calls from OPEC ministers this
week for action to halt a slide in oil prices. []
"OPEC appears to be scrambling to put in another, firmer
floor at $80," said Jonathan Kornafel, Asia director of U.S.
based options trader Hudson Capital Energy.
"The market may still overshoot on the downside regardless
of what OPEC does, as financial flows continue to pour out of
commodities," he added.
Investors will also look to Washington, where finance
ministers and central bankers from the Group of Seven major
industrial nations will meet amid expectations that the group
will present a united front on policy to contain the crisis.
[]
Potentially taking two dramatic steps to repair ailing
financial markets, the United States is considering
guaranteeing billions of dollars in bank debt and temporarily
insuring all U.S. bank deposits, the Wall Street Journal
reported on its Web site. []
The International Energy Agency (IEA) releases its monthly
report on the oil market at 0900 GMT, and investors are
expecting another cut in demand expectations for this year and
next.
The slumping economy has already prompted analysts to
revise downwards their global oil demand growth target, with
the U.S. Energy Information Administration this week dropping
its 2009 projection by 140,000 barrels per day.
(Additional reporting by James Topham in Tokyo; Editing by
Clarence Fernandez)
