Oil drifts below $60, Saudi warning lends support

SINGAPORE, Nov 27 (Reuters) Oil prices backed away from a barrel on Monday, unwinding gains marked late last week on news of a new Nigerian supply outage and a weakening US dollar, but a Saudi warning of possible new output curbs lent support.

Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi, speaking publicly on OPEC policy for the first time in almost three weeks, on Saturday reiterated that the producer cartel could cut oil output again when it meets next month if a reduction agreed in Qatar last month failed to balance the market.

London Brent crude for January delivery slipped 36 cents to .67 a barrel by 0109 GMT, after gaining 68 cents on Friday.

U.S. light, sweet crude was trading at .46, up 22 cents from the settlement on Wednesday, the last day of trade in New York before the two-day Thanksgiving holiday.

But prices were down from the end of an electronic-only trading session on Friday, when they rallied to .90 a barrel after Italian firm ENI was reported to have declared force majeure on a 50,000 barrel per day (bpd) Nigerian field and the U.S. dollar fell to a 19-month low versus the euro.

The dollar carried on falling on Monday, breaking free of a six-month trading range and lifting prices across the commodities complex on expectations of stronger demand.

Oil, however, remained stuck in its two-month trading rut of - a barrel, showing few signs of resuming a climb back toward a record high .40 a barrel hit in mid-July.

''I'm a range-view person, from the mid-s to the low s... The flow of news has gotten a bit positive and should keep the market well supported,'' said Tobin Gorey, commodities strategist at the Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

''A drop in the US dollar helps by cutting non-US oil prices,'' said Gorey. While the dollar is not normally a major factor for oil, it takes on more importance when it breaks free of old ranges and moves sharply higher or lower, he added.

On Saturday, OPEC's most powerful voice joined OPEC peers in warning of a possible second production cut next month, if the group's 1.2 million bpd curbs imposed since the start of November failed to do the trick in draining hefty U.S. stocks.

''We must look at the impact of the measures decided in Doha. If they are adequate, we will be satisfied, if they are not we will act again and the aim is to bring stability back to the market,'' Naimi told reporters.

''The (oil) price is not an indicator, the indicator is stockpiles and the excess of supply over demand,'' he said.

Prices fell on Wednesday after U.S. crude oil inventories rose by a sharper than expected 5.1 million barrel, putting them 6 percent above last year's already healthy levels.

REUTERS PV DS1245