After spending a month hovering in the $50 or above range, oil dropped early this week, closing Monday and Tuesday, Nov. 15 and 16, below $47 a barrel.

The closing price Tuesday was $46.11 a barrel, more than $9 a barrel less than the $55.17 closing price on Oct. 26.

The price of diesel seemingly followed, with the U.S. Energy Information Service reporting Monday that the average national price was down to $2.132, a few cents less than the $2.163 of the previous week.

News sources reported an increase in the worldwide supplies when an expected cold spell in the U.S. Northeast didn’t develop as expected. In the meantime, output reportedly revived in the Gulf of Mexico, where daily production is still about 13 percent below normal levels but significantly higher than a month ago.

However, the oil supply was not out of the woods yet. Reuters news service reported Tuesday that a rebel leader in Nigeria who had been disarming had stopped, and was threatening an “all-out war” on the nation’s oil industry. Nigeria is a major oil-producing nation and member of OPEC.