The October New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX) crude contract on the after-hours ACCESS trade was traded at $20.63 per barrel at 0815 GMT, up five cents from its New York close.

In the regular NYMEX trade in New York, the contract ended the day 89 cents weaker at $20.58.

October Brent crude on the Singapore International Monetary Exchange (SIMEX) was up two cents at $19.80, after settling 85 cents weaker at $19.78 on London's IPE.

Brent hit a 22-month high of $21.27 on Monday but had lost more than seven per cent, or $1.60, at Wednesday's intraday low of $19.67.

Traders said bearish US gasoline stock data sparked an initial sell-off in the London and New York markets on Wednesday.

The US department of energy released data showing a rise of 200,000 barrels in gasoline stocks, when the market had expected a large decline.

The early price slip fuelled more selling byspeculators, looking to take profits, causing prices to spiral downwards, traders said.

``There were some technical moving average numbers that were crossed and the funds came in to sell,'' said Mark Ammirati of ED&F Man in New York.

``Hedge funds tend to look at those moving averages, and as soon as they're crossed, they see it as a technical signal, so they got out. Their selling pulled the market down the 80-90 cents we ended with,'' he said.

Despite the heavy selling, brokers said speculators still held fairly long positions and could potentially sell further.

``They started out with very long positions and prices could come off even more tomorrow if funds tried to get out,'' Ammirati said, referring to trading on Thursday.

Oil prices have doubled since March and stood near 22-month highs before Wednesday's sell off. The gains made the market ripe for a sell off, traders said.

OPEC production cuts have provided the main support for the market and were expected to lead to a supply deficitduring the northern hemisphere winter months, if maintained.

Several OPEC members, including powerful Saudi Arabia and Iran, have said the cartel should maintain the cuts until the agreement runs out in March, 2000.

Oil ministers from Saudi Arabia and Venezuela are expected to discuss strategy with non-OPEC Mexico when they meet in Caracas later this week.

A full OPEC ministerial meeting is due to be held in Vienna on September 22.

While stocks in the US, the world's largest consumer, have fallen significantly from the very high levels of early this year, analysts said they were still above the five- year average.