The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) members, who had cut output by 2.6 million barrels-per-day earlier this year, were not expected to deepen cuts.

But on last Thursday, Algeria, a price hawk within Opec, said it was sending special envoys to nine of its fellow members ahead of the November 25 Opec meeting.

This helped keep crude above its 12-year low on Thursday in London with January Brent, settling just six cents down at $11.54per barrel. In response, Singapore fuel oil swaps were last quoted $68.25/$69.00 per tonne for December by brokers, 50 cents firmer. January paper was bid/offered almost flat to December, signalling that the prompt market was coming under pressure of arbitrage arrivals, traders said. On the physical market on Thursday, two 380-centistoke cargoes changed hands at $63.00 for December 4-8 lift. The gas oil market remained deep in bearishness as poor physical fundamentals served to check paper's crude-led rises, traders said. December gas oil paper was last quoted $13.40/$13.55, unchanged after a rather bullish Thursday trade which had seen an intra-day high of $13.60/$13.70 reached, traders said. January paper were higher than December, relecting a contango of around 50 cents per barrel, but quoted outright unchanged at $13.95/$14.05, brokers said. The physical on Thursday traded at $12.80 and $12.85 per barrel, matching the 12-year low set in end August, both bought by a Singapore trader. Middle distillatestock levels in Singapore which were climbing to near 13 million barrels this week according to the trade development board, put a dampener on the market, traders said.