Oil prices continued lower as the market maintained its focus on signs of falling demand for crude oil products in the US, and as several more US refineries came back on line. At 12.19 pm, November-dated Brent futures contracts, which expire later today, were down 14 cents at 60.00 usd a barrel while US benchmark November-dated contracts were down 46 cents at 62.64 usd. The US Department of Energy said in its regular report yesterday that demand for gasoline fell over the past four weeks by 2.4 pct compared with the same period in 2004, while demand for distillates was down 4.0 pct. The news dampened market sentiment and offset reports earlier in the week from both the DoE and the International Energy agency forecasting a rebound in demand in 2006. The reports had helped oil prices recover on Tuesday and Wednesday from the two month lows they reached last week, again on evidence from the DoE that US demand was waning. Informa Global Markets analyst Peter Luxton said that right now the market is more so focused on the demand side of the equation, be it news of demand rebounds or falls. This is why yesterday's news of demand falls in the US also overshadowed weekly stocks data from the DoE showing greater-than expected draws in gasoline and distillate stocks. Gasoline stocks for the week to Oct 7 were down by 2.7 mln barrels while distillate stocks fell by 3.4 mln barrels. Crude stocks, however, rose by a smaller-than-expected 1 mln barrels. Although this was the first increase since the week ending Aug 19, before hurricanes Katrina and Rita ravaged the oil-rich US Gulf of Mexico, the increase was expected as up to 10 pct of US refining capacity remains shut. US refineries are, however, slowly starting to come back on line and this is helping ease prices. Last week for example, up to 15 pct of refining capacity remained shut in the wake of the storms. Sucden analyst Sam Tilley said waning demand notwithstanding, he does not see the market breaking under 60 usd a barrel, as it is still supported on the fundamental side. Heating oil stocks are currently 10 pct higher than a year ago but Tilley said the question of whether supplies will be able to match demand going into winter still remains.