Oil prices fell sharply on Friday, paring back Thursday's 3 percent rally as the season's first tropical storm caused only minor production outages in the offshore Gulf of Mexico. Tropical Storm Arlene forced oil companies to shut about 70,000 barrels per day of their production in the energy-rich region by Friday afternoon, amounting to just 4 percent of the region's output -- and experts said operations would be quick to restart. "The storm may become a hurricane, but I don't think there will be any sustained damage," said Marshall Steeves, an analyst at Refco. "It's not Ivan," he added, referring to the hurricane that severely disrupted oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico last year. U.S. light sweet crude CLc1 slipped 70 cents to $53.58 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, cutting into Thursday's gain of nearly $2. London Brent crude LCOc1 fell $1.15 to $52.67 a barrel on the International Petroleum Exchange. Murphy Oil Corp. , Exxon Mobil, Marathon Oil Corp. and Total said Friday they were shutting small amounts of oil and gas production ahead of Arlene. Hundreds of offshore oil workers have been evacuated. --More 2326 Local Time 2026 GMT
