Oil was mixed today in Asian trade amid renewed tensions over Iran's nuclear programme, analysts said.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for January delivery, dropped five cents to $78.32 a barrel.
Brent North Sea crude for January delivery was 88 cents higher at $79.35 a barrel.
Both contracts had closed higher yesterday.
"Iran is very bullish," said Ellis Eckland, an independent analyst.
Tensions simmered as Iran hit out at its long-time nuclear partner Russia over a yes vote for a censure motion at the UN atomic watchdog and insisted it was serious about plans for 10 additional uranium enrichment plants.
"Russia made a mistake. It does not have an accurate analysis of today's world situation," Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said yesterday in a televised interview.
Iran announced on Sunday it plans to build 10 new uranium enrichment plants, heaping scorn on a rebuke by the UN atomic watchdog for constructing its second such plant near the Shiite holy city of Qom. Twenty-five IAEA members voted against Tehran and asked it to freeze the building of the plant.
In late US trade yesterday, the euro traded at $1.5082, up from $1.5005 late on Monday in New York.
