Oil prices fall down third time

Oil prices eased further Tuesday as the head of OPEC said there was plenty of crude on the market and U.S. gasoline demand passed its summer peak with the close of the Labor Day holiday.

Traders are also switching their focus to heating fuels ahead of winter in the northern hemisphere, reports CNN.

Bloomberg News Service reports crude oil for future delivery hovered near $43 a barrel, dropping as low as $42.73.

OPEC President Purnomo Yusgiantoro said global markets have a supply surplus of some 1.5 million barrels a day, despite strong demand from China, the United States and India.

The cartel's ministers are to meet later this month in Austria to discuss ways to bring global oil prices down.

Supply concerns were further eased after Hurricane Frances missed U.S. offshore oilrigs in the Gulf of Mexico, averting a stoppage of U.S. oil production, says Voice of America.

"International oil prices for the September to December period are likely to drop," Purnomo Yusgiantoro, the head of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries and Indonesia's energy minister, told reporters in Jakarta, according to the Associated Press.