NEW YORK(Bloomberg) — Crude oil fell on speculation US fuel inventories are sufficient to meet heating demand in the world’s largest energy consumer as the end of winter approaches.Temperatures in much of the U.S. Northeast, the nation’s largest heating oil consuming region, may be above average in the week ending March 4, according to the National Weather Service.

Crude oil may fall this week as warmer weather moves into the eastern half of the US, curbing demand for heating oil and natural gas, according to a Bloomberg News survey.

US fuel stockpiles “are still going to fall, and we expect they may fall down to the five-year average,” Paul Horsnell, Barclays Capital’s head of commodities research, said in an interview in London. “But they are never going to run out.”

Crude oil for March delivery fell 89 cents, or 1.5 percent, to $58.50 a barrel on electronic trading the New York Mercantile Exchange at 5 p.m. in New York. Floor trading was closed yesterday for the Presidents Day holiday.

The March contract expires tomorrow. The more active April contract dropped 72 cents to $59.14.

US distillate supplies, including heating oil and diesel, declined about three million barrels in the week to February 9, leaving them 7.3 percent above the five-year average for the period, according to the Energy Department.

The inventories were 7.9 percent higher than average in the week to February 2.

Brent oil for April settlement declined 81 cents, or 1.4 percent, to $58.14 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.

Twenty-one of 42 analysts, traders and brokers, or 50 percent, said prices will decline this week, according to the survey.

Ten expected an increase and 11 forecast little change.

The week before, 35 percent of respondents expected futures to fall.

Russia, the world’s largest oil producer after Saudi Arabia, cut its forecast for crude prices this year and next, Deputy Finance Minister Tatiana Golikova told parliament today, according to local news services.

The ministry cut its forecast for 2007 to $55 a barrel from $61 a barrel and the 2008 estimate to $53 a barrel from $56, RIA Novosti and Interfax cited Golikova as saying.

Russia calculates its budget according to the price of Urals, the country’s benchmark blend of crude. Urals currently trades for about $55 a barrel.

“Massive stocks are out there,” said Elizabeth Miller, head of research at Aberdeen, Scotland-based commodities consultant RedTower Ltd.

“There is a lot of supply” even as OPEC trims production, she said.

The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries, producer of 40 percent of the world’s oil, has pledged supply cutbacks of 1.7 million barrels a day as it aims to bolster the price of oil, which has declined about 25 percent from a record high $78.40 a barrel reached in New York on July 14.

The second of OPEC’s two production cuts began February 1.

OPEC members “really have proved themselves” by taking “enough oil off the market” to prop up prices, Roger Jones, head of energy and metals trading at Barclays Capital, said in an interview in London. “The evidence is quite clear that they are still able to” control the market.

Iranian Oil Minister Kazem Vaziri-Hamaneh said OPEC probably won’t need another production cut at current prices, the Islamic Republic News Agency reported February 17.

OPEC’s 12 members will meet in Vienna on March 15 to examine market conditions.

OPEC’s basket price, a weighted average of 11 blends produced by OPEC nations, rose 76 cents to $53.56 a barrel on February 16, the latest available data.

“OPEC can live very well with prices between $55 and $60,” said Jakob Schoechli, an analyst at Clariden Leu AG in Zurich. “They’ll react if it goes beneath $50.”

Expressed in US dollars, the price of the US benchmark crude, called West Texas Intermediate, has fallen about three percent in 12 months.

Oil has dropped about 12 percent in euros, 13 percent in British pounds and 2.5 percent in yen.