World oil prices ended mixed Wednesday after the US government reported a rise in crude inventories but a decline in stocks of products used for heating fuel amid a cold snap.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in January, dipped 52 cents to close at 60.85 dollars a barrel.

In London, the price of Brent North Sea crude for January delivery added 8 cents to 59.60 dollars a barrel in electronic dealing.

The London contract had earlier touched 61.21 dollars, its first breach above 60 dollars since Nov. 3, but shed most of its gains on profit-taking.

US crude oil stocks increased 900,000 barrels for the week ended Dec. 9 to total 321.2 million barrels, the Department of Energy said. That was in line with analysts' forecasts.

Gasoline inventories increased 1.8 million barrels to 204.4 million barrels, compared with market expectations of a 689,000- barrel build.

But stocks of distillate products, used for heating oil and diesel fuel, fell 100,000 barrels to 130.5 million barrels, the DoE said.

That reflected a 0.9 percent rise in US demand for distillates compared to a year ago. Heating oil reserves in the United States are now some 13.4 percent larger than at the same stage last year.

An upward revision of global oil demand in 2006 by the International Energy Agency on Tuesday also gave support to prices. The IEA had revised upwards its demand estimate for oil produced by the OPEC cartel of nations in 2006 to 28.5 million barrels per day (bpd).

OPEC's decision in Kuwait on Monday to withdraw an emergency offer of spare capacity and leave unchanged its quota of 28 million bpd added weight to the market, according to some analysts.

The cartel said it would meet again on Jan. 31 in Vienna to assess an expected seasonal drop in demand for energy between April and September, with a possible cut in output on the cards.

Source: Xinhua