Oil slips after Nigeria cut appears unilateral

LONDON, Sep 29 (Reuters) Oil fell back towards on Friday after OPEC member Nigeria appeared to be alone in its decision to trim output to stem a two-month price slide.

U.S. crude shed 42 cents to .34 a barrel by 1344 GMT, deepening losses of 20 cents the previous session. London Brent crude lost 69 cents to .85.

''Nigeria is sending a signal that doesn't appear to be a fully coordinated move with OPEC and the market is trying to work out what that means,'' said Mike Wittner of Calyon investment bank.

Despite consultations with other OPEC producers, the world's eighth largest exporter Nigeria seemed to be unilaterally cutting supplies by 5 percent beginning Oct. 1.

''Nigeria has said clearly it is cutting by 5 percent, but it appears this is a unilateral act,'' an OPEC spokesman said from the cartel's headquarters in Vienna.

OPEC's acting Secretary-General Mohammed Barkindo told Reuters on Thursday that other members of OPEC had joined Nigeria in reducing supplies.

But the OPEC spokesman said it remained to be seen whether other producers in the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries would make voluntary supply cuts.

''I haven't seen anything like that yet,'' the spokesman said.

Oil in New York has lost about 20 percent from a July peak of .40, the steepest drop since the 1991 Gulf War.

Although some OPEC members have been signalling that the cartel will trim output, the market has been dominated by a string of bearish data, limiting the impact of OPEC's rumblings.

''There is obviously enough oil flowing in the market. The inventories are at a very comfortable level and capacity has come back a notch, so the judgement is that there is more than enough supply,'' said Tobin Gorey at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

ECONOMIC WORRY A recent spate of weak economic data has also begun to sow doubts about the sustainability of U.S. economic growth in late 2006 and early 2007.

Official data on Thursday showed that U.S. economic growth has decelerated more sharply than expected in the second quarter. The world's largest economy grew at a revised 2.6 percent annual rate in the second quarter, slower than the 2.9 percent forecast a month earlier and about half of the first quarter's 5.6 percent clip.

The political limbo over the nuclear ambitions of Iran, the world's fourth largest oil exporter, has also added pressure to oil prices, analysts say.

European Union foreign policy chief Javier Solana said on Thursday he had failed to reach a deal with Iran's chief nuclear negotiator on Tehran's atomic plans, but they had paved the way for further talks.

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