Light sweet cude for December delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange fell 31 cents to $58.42 a barrel in electronic trading by midday in Europe.

"The market has no real headlines to drive it, and the weather forecast for the Northern Hemisphere winter is on the warm side," which will keep prices around $57-$58 a barrel, said Victor Shum, an energy analyst at Purvin & Gertz in Singapore.

A sudden cold snap, however, would bump up fuel demand and prompt a price spike, he said.

"The sharp decline in oil prices seen at the start of the week came to a halt yesterday," PVM Oil Associates said Wednesday, though new US inventory data to be published later Wednesday were expected to give further direction to the market.