BEIJING, Oct. 15 (Xinhuanet) -- Oil prices soared to another record high of almost 55 US dollars a barrel on Thursday as Washington reported another fall in heating fuel stocks before winter.

    Supplies of heating oil declined by 1.2 million barrels last week, falling to 50 million barrels, or 10 percent below the levela year ago, the US Energy Department said in its weekly petroleum supply report.

    Heating-oil futures in New York and Brent crude futures in London also settled at fresh record highs.

    At the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude set for November delivery advanced 1.12 dollars, or 2.1 percent, to be at a new record high of 54.76 dollars a barrel.

    In London, November Brent crude rose 79 cents to 50.84 dollars a barrel at the International Petroleum Exchange.

    World prices have been up on fears of the US shortage in winterfuel supplies due to Hurricane Ivan which damaged oil operations in the Gulf of Mexico last month.

    While some refiners were temporarily shut down to perform maintenance, heating oil supplies would not build up dramatically between now and the start of winter.

    Oil production in the Gulf of Mexico is still at 72 percent of its normal rate of 1.7 million barrels per day after infrastructure damage by the hurricane.

    Heating oil prices in the United States, the world's largest energy consumer, have risen about 70 percent this year.

    Tight fuel stocks in Asia and Europe have also weighed the price increase. German consumer stocks of heating oil rose by 3 percent last month to 60 percent of capacity on Oct. 1, but remained below year-ago levels.

    News from Nigeria, the world's seventh largest oil exporter, may ease some fears for oil supply on the world market. The country's trade unions decided to end the four-day nationwide warning strike at midnight Thursday as scheduled, but threatened to resume the action if the government fails to roll back the almost 25 percent increase in fuel prices.

    "With effect from midnight today, (we) hereby suspend the firstphase four-day warning strike," the country's umbrella union, the Nigeria Labor Congress (NLC), said in a statement.

    "The second phase will begin in two weeks if the immediate issue of price reversal is not addressed," it said.

    The strike, which began on Monday, has brought much of Africa'stop oil producer to a near standstill, but so far has little impact on its oil exports.

    The unions said the rise in fuel prices have promoted inflationin Nigeria, and made Nigerians more impoverished.

    President of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) Purnomo Yusgiantoro expected that oil prices will continue to rise through the end of this month as demand is still high.

    The OPEC has pledged to pump more oil, but could not meet the rapid growth of demand.

    The world's excess production capacity was only 1 percent of daily demand. Surging oil prices reflected mounting concerns that this supply cushion will be inadequate in the event of a large andprolonged loss of daily production. Enditem