UPDATE 4-Oil pares gains after U.S. retail sales dip

                                
 * Oil rises further after ending 4-day fall
                                
 * U.S. retail sales fall unexpectedly by 0.1 pct in June
                                
 * U.S. jobless claims rise slightly
                                
 * EIA weekly stocks show demand still weak
                                
 
                                
 (Adds comments, updates prices after U.S. data)
                                
 By Chris Baldwin
                                
 LONDON, Aug 13 (Reuters) - Oil pared early gains above $72 a
barrel on Thursday after U.S. retail sales data emerged showing
a slightly unexpected fall in consumer spending from the world's
largest economy.
                                
 U.S. light crude for September delivery <CLc1> was up $1.20
at $71.46 a barrel by 1252 GMT, but down from an earlier high of
$72.21.
                                
 London Brent crude <LCOc1> gained $1.22 to $74.11.
                                
 Sales at U.S. retailers unexpectedly edged down 0.1 percent
in July from June, a government report showed on Thursday,
casting a shadow over brighter French and German GDP data
earlier in the day. [ID:nN12109251]
                                
 "The retail sales data took a bit of the edge off the
previous rally," said Tony Machacek, a broker at Bache
Commodities in London.
                                
 In a separate release of data, the number of U.S. workers
filing new claims for jobless benefits rose unexpectedly last
week by a small amount. [ID:nN13489469]
                                
 
                                
 EARLY BULLS
                                
 Gross domestic product (GDP) in the euro zone's two biggest
economies rose by 0.3 percent each in the second quarter against
expectations for a decline of 0.3 percent. [ID:nLD368819]
                                
 The unexpectedly bullish news added to sentiment that the
worst of the deepest financial crisis in decades was over,
particularly after the U.S. Federal Reserve made its clearest
statement yet that it sees the recession nearing an end.
[ID:nN1272730]
                                
 This in turn pressured the dollar, as investors moved to
riskier assets, including commodities, after the Fed on
Wednesday held its benchmark rate near zero and said it would
likely keep it there for an extended period to guide the way to
recovery. [USD/] [ID:nN1272730]
                                
 "There's this global good feeling at the moment. It's
reverberating through everything, commodity markets equally as
well,"  said CMC Markets analyst James Hughes in London.
                                
 
                                
 INVENTORY DATA
                                
 U.S. crude inventories rose much more than expected last
week on higher imports and lower demand from domestic refiners,
U.S. Energy Information Agency data showed on Wednesday. [EIA/S]
                                
 But forecasts that an oil demand recovery is at hand led
traders to shrug off the bearish weekly data from the world's
biggest consumer of energy.
                                
 Analysts at Barclays Capital forecast a bullish upswing in
global oil demand, seven times larger than the forecast from the
International Energy Agency, although they said there was
continuing upside risk.
                                
 "In the U.S., a swing up in industrial output, consumer
sales, final sales and a turn in the wholesale goods inventory
argue for an impending sharp change in the underlying dynamic of
U.S. oil demand," Barclays Capital said in its weekly oil data
review.
 (Additional reporting by Maryelle Demongeot in Singapore,
editing by Peter Blackburn)