Oil prices languished at seven-week lows Wednesday after plunging on optimism that there will be adequate supplies during the northern hemisphere winter.

New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in December, dropped by 33 cents to 47.04 dollars a barrel in electronic trading at about 1145 GMT, after losing 1.72 dollars onTYiesday.

Brent North Sea crude for December fell 26 cents to 43.45 dollars in London, a day after slumping by 2.21 dollars.

US crude futures ended at the lowest finish since September 21 on Tuesday, continuing a two-week slide that has largely been driven by easing concerns over US crude oil inventories for winter.

In the past two weeks, New York light sweet crude has tumbled by about 14 percent, and Brent by 15 percent as supplies recover from hurricane-induced losses in the Gulf of Mexico.

"Prices are lower because they have been going down for several days,” said one London trader.

"They are in a downward trend for more than two weeks now, so the market is technically weak. People are expecting builds in US stocks. There is not much pressure on the supply side anymore."

A weekly snapshot of US crude oil inventories, due late Wednesday, was expected to show the stockpiles continuing to grow, after a rise of over 10 million barrels over the two previous weeks.

More importantly though the data was also expected to show a build in distillates - mostly heating oil and diesel - after a seven-week decline.

Low heating oil stockpiles have been a key cause of concern for markets ahead of the peak-demand northern winter period.

Oil prices are likely to soften further in the coming months amid continued strong output from OPEC and adequate stocks of industrial crude in key developed countries, the International Energy Agency said.

The Paris-based IEA said in its monthly report for November that its forecast for global oil demand was roughly unchanged at 82.4 million barrels a day in 2004and 83.8 million barrels a day in 2005.

Demand growth is set to slow from a revised figure of 2.6*1 million barrels a day in 200-1 to 1.44 million barrels a day next year.

"Barring any major unforeseen developments, oil markets should continue to ease heading into and out of the (northern hemisphere's) winter," the report said.

Jim Ritterbusch, President of Ritterbusch and Associates, said further price declines were now anticipated.

He noted, however, that although the market broadly expected distillate inventories to rise, any such build will "do little to narrow the shortfall in primary supply that we estimate at around 13 million barrels."

"While a winter squeeze in the heating oil could pull cnide values back to above the 50.00 dollar level, new record highs now appear out of reach."