New York's main contract, light sweet crude for January delivery, sank USD 1.06 to USD 76.40 a barrel.
Brent North Sea crude for January delivery dipped USD 1.58 to USD 75.98.
"Despite the economic recovery optimism, the near-term facts are that the market is still burdened by high inventories," said Andy Lebow, MF Global's senior vice president for energy, cited by Dow Jones Newswires.
VTB Capital commodities analyst Andrey Kryuchenkov added: "We still expect resurfacing demand concerns to cap the upside in oil."
Oil prices have slumped from record highs of above USD 147 reached in July 2008 to about USD 32 in December last year, as the economic downturn hit world demand for energy.
Crude futures have slowly won back ground as major industrialised nations emerge from recession but oil demand remains weak despite reportedly rising for the first time in seven quarters.
World oil demand rose between July and September after falling during the previous six quarters, the Centre for Global Energy Studies said in a monthly report published yesterday.
