Oil falls in Asia on swine flu fall-out

SINGAPORE: Crude prices continued to decline during Asian trade on Tuesday amid worries that an outbreak of swine flu globally would hurt air travel, thereby reducing oil demand, analysts said.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for June delivery, dropped 20 cents to $49.94 a barrel.

Brent North Sea crude for June delivery was off six cents to $50.26.

"Concerns that the outbreak of swine flu may discourage air travel were a negative for the oil price," said David Moore, a commodity analyst with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney.

The swine flu outbreak that began in Mexico has raised fears of a global pandemic after suspected and confirmed cases were detected in parts of Europe, the United States and New Zealand.

Analysts said swine flu, a contagious and sometimes fatal respiratory disease among pigs, has the potential to affect the global aviation industry if the outbreak escalates further.

The last time an epidemic hurt the aviation sector was in 2003 when the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) curbed air travel and sent the sector into a tailspin.

The World Health Organisation on Monday raised its flu pandemic alert level from three to four, signalling a "significant increase in risk of a pandemic" under its criteria.