Oil prices lost ground in early trading on Monday as support from worries about cold US weather and the low levels of consumer countries’ oil inventories continued to ebb away. The price of benchmark brent North Sea crude oil for March delivery fell 41 cents to $28.77 per barrel in early trading here. New York’s light sweet crude reference for March delivery lost 29 cents to $32.76 a barrel in pre-opening electronic deals. ‘‘Speculators have been unwinding some of the massed long positions that they have built up over the winter, in expectation of an end to the cold weather and stock-decline led rally that has seen Brent prices gain about 14 per cent since mid-September,’’ said analysts at the Sucden brokerage Firm. Forecasters were predicting milder temperatures for the northeast region of the United States after recent arctic conditions which sent oil prices soaring to post-iraq war highs.
