Oil prices continued lower as further signs of a slowdown in demand took focus away from supply concerns. At 13.31 pm, November-dated Brent futures contracts were down 51 cents at 63.15 usd a barrel. Meanwhile, US benchmark October-dated contracts were down 53 cents at 64.25 usd. Sucden analyst Sam Tilley said the losses were down to concerns about global demand for oil falling in response to high oil prices. Yesterday, OPEC revised down its oil demand forecast for 2005 to 83.5 mln from 83.6 mln barrels previously. The cut was the fifth in a row. Additionally, the International Energy Agency said it has decided against expanding the 30-day rescue plan it put in place to help ease supply concerns in the US after refinery damage from Hurricane Katrina pushed oil prices to historic highs. "I think there is lots of unwinding going on at the moment. After the scare from US stock numbers, markets are now focusing on the demand side again," said Informa Global Markets analyst Peter Luxton. He said apart from OPEC, yesterday's poor economic data in the US and China's decision to delay purchases for its strategic stockpile were further signs high oil prices may be starting to take their toll on economic growth. "If high petrol prices start to hit, they will slow world economic growth and ultimately slow demand. That has become the focal point, the market is shifting away from supply concerns, which have dominated for last two years, to the impact of high oil prices on demand," said Luxton. "I don't think we're going to see a major collapse but overall, in the longer term, maybe we've seen the peak for oil prices," he added. Other analysts were more bullish, however, pointing out that the US was still technically in hurricane season and that with refining capacity still extremely tight, any more disruptions could cause prices to spike. "We are one major refinery outage away from a surge in prices," said Tilley, pointing out that refining capacity in the US is only 86-87 pct, not enough to meet the demands of a cold winter. Tilley also noted that demand levels are still rising even though the pace of growth has come off the boil. Moreover, the global economy is still growing fairly strongly, he added. "I think we're going to find strong support around the 62 usd usd level and below that, at around 60 usd. In the last two falls, 61.50 usd has proven a strong level below which the market still looks at refining concerns," he said.