Oil prices dropped on Friday as market expected that supplies would exceed the demand.

The US crude supplies of last week gained 1 million barrels to 488.2 million barrels, 105.2 million barrels more than one year before, the US Energy Information Administration (EIA) said in a weekly report released on Wednesday.

Inventories at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for the US contract, added 1.75 million barrels to 58.6 million barrels, Xinhua news agency reported.

The US crude production added 17,000 to 9.165 million barrels a day last week, according to the EIA's report.

Traders are still closely watching the next gathering of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) scheduled for 4 December in Vienna.

OPEC maintained it output quota of 30 million barrels per day at June's meeting. The cartel's output is accounted for around 40% of the global crude output.

The West Texas Intermediate for December delivery moved down $1.33 to settle at $41.71 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude for January delivery decreased 60 cents to close at $44.86 a barrel on the London ICE Futures Exchange.