Oil slipped from its recent four-month peak on Tuesday but remained well above $51 a barrel as cold U.S. weather continued to drive heating demand, threatening to exhaust thin heating oil supplies.

Light, sweet crude for April delivery fell 26 cents to $51.49 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange by midafternoon in Europe. Heating oil dropped half a cent to $1.4490 a gallon.

Brent crude dropped 18 cents to $49.88 on the International Petroleum Exchange.

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