The average price of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) basket of 11 crudes went on to decline during the past week, standing at 52.58 US dollars a barrel, down 0.61 dollar from the previous week, the Vienna-based OPEC Secretariat said on Monday.

Analysts said the oil prices in the world market dropped due to continued increase in crude oil stockpiles in the US and a reduction in demand for heating oil due to warm weather in the States and Europe.

The OPEC weekly average prices for crude oil have kept falling for seven weeks successively.

The daily oil prices for per barrel have dropped from 52.86 dollars last Monday to 50.25 dollars last Friday.

The price of a barrel has dropped more than 11 dollars from the record high of 61.37 dollars on Sept. 1, reaching a new low in just over five months. The prices stood at 50.21 dollars per barrel on June 8.

Despite the falling trend in oil prices, OPEC has ruled out the possibility of cutting crude oil output.

OPEC President Sheikh Ahmed Fahed al-Sabah said on Monday that the cartel had no intention of cutting oil production.

He said OPEC would wait until its meeting next month to decide on its policy for two million barrels per day (bpd) of surplus crude oil which it made available to world markets in September.

A report by US energy information provider Platts showed the daily crude output of 11 OPEC members dropped to 30.07 million barrels in October, about 240,000 barrels lower than the previous month.

In Iraq alone, the daily output decreased to 1.8 million barrels from September's 1.99 million barrels, said the report.

Source: Xinhua