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May 10th, 2013 
Peter Nolan
CRUDE oil prices slipped on Friday on renewed global demand worries after OPEC left its 2013 estimate unchanged and reported increased output in April.
New York’s main contract, West Texas Intermediate (WTI) for June delivery, closed at $96.04 a barrel, down 35 cents from Thursday.
In London trade, Brent North Sea crude for June settled 56 cents lower at $103.91 a barrel.
The WTI futures contract sank more than $3 before pulling back up in late-session trade.
Robert Yawger of Mizuho Securities USA said that traders appeared to realise the strong losses earlier in the day were “overdone” and did not want to be left short ahead of the weekend.
Oil prices also were under pressure after the oil cartel OPEC “did not raise their global demand forecast and continue to warn about the downside risks in the economy,” said John Kilduff of Again Capital.
The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, in its April report, forecast total average oil demand of 89.7 million barrels per day, up 0.8 million bpd from 2012, unchanged from its March projection.
“A fragile recovery in the global economy has been visible since the beginning of the year, but momentum has started slowing again and growth risks are skewed to the downside,” said the cartel, which accounts for around 35 per cent of global crude output.
It said that for China, the main source of global growth, recent data indicated that oil demand had dropped significantly between January and March, with March showing the most sluggish rate in seven months.
This likely reflected “some weakness” in Chinese economic activity, with data for first-quarter economic growth coming in below consensus at 7.7 per cent, OPEC noted.
The report also estimated that in April total OPEC daily crude production rose 0.9 per cent from March.
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