...AND LOWER...:

Crude tumbles as Saudis play down output cut (Myra P. Saefong & Ciara Linnane, Jan 16, 2007, MarketWatch)

Crude for February delivery was last down $1.39, or 2.6%, at $51.60 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract struck a 20-month intraday low of $51.25.

Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi told reporters at an oil conference in India that the market is "significantly healthier" now than it was in October, when OPEC agreed to cut output by 1.2 million barrels a day, Dow Jones Newswires reported.

OPEC decided on a second output cut at a meeting in December but deferred that cut --another 500,000 barrels a day -- until Feb.

Data suggest, however, that individual OPEC members have been lax in implementing the agreed-on cuts, further weighing on oil prices.