(Updates prices; adds Brent and details)
By Felicia Loo
SINGAPORE, April 22 (Reuters) - Oil held above $117 a
barrel on Tuesday, just shy of its all-time high, as
geopolitical risks stoked fears of supply worries at a time of
robust Chinese crude demand.
U.S. light crude for May delivery <CLc1> dipped 17 cents to
$117.31 a barrel by 0642 GMT, after prices hit an all-time peak
of $117.83 on Monday.
London Brent crude <LCOc1> dropped 3 cents to $114.40 a
barrel.
"Again there are some concerns over supply disruptions in
Nigeria," said David Moore, commodities strategist at
Commonwealth Bank of Australia.
Pipeline attacks in OPEC member Nigeria last week shut
169,000 barrels per day (bpd) of Bonny Light production,
forcing Royal Dutch Shell Plc <RDSa.L> to declare force majeure
on crude oil exports. []
Nigerian rebels also attacked two Shell oil pipelines in
the Niger Delta on Monday after the raid last week in what they
called an act of defiance against major consumer the United
States, the world's top energy consumer. []
Crude imports to China, the No. 2 oil user, surged a
quarter from a year ago to 4.07 million bpd in March, far above
previous records, customs data showed on Tuesday.
China also more than quadrupled March diesel imports to
494,192 tonnes and gasoline exports tumbled 84 percent to
101,319 tonnes in the same period, as state oil firms rushed to
stock up oil ahead of the summer Olympics. []
Chinese implied oil demand -- net imports plus refinery
output but excluding inventory changes that are not reported --
grew 8.1 percent in March from a year earlier, the highest rate
for 19 months. []
Sparking supply worries, the Grangemouth refinery in
Scotland has begun shutting down ahead of a two-day strike due
to start on Sunday. Some North Sea oil and natural gas output
will have to be shut in if the union halts the refinery.
But OPEC officials reiterated that the market had enough
oil and the producer group would not ramp up output to help
bring down prices despite calls for more oil from some consumer
nations.
Iranian oil minister Gholamhossein Nozari said oil prices
were not too high in real terms, even as U.S. pump prices hit a
new record as the world's top consumer gears up for the summer
driving season.
Though the rise in fuel costs has added pressure to the
struggling U.S. economy, Energy Secretary Sam Bodman on Monday
said he did not favour tapping emergency reserves to help bring
down oil prices.
The weak U.S. dollar has also contributed to oil's rally,
devaluing assets in the U.S. currency and pushing investors to
shift part of their money to commodities and oil.
A Reuters poll of analysts ahead of weekly government
inventory data to be released on Wednesday forecast U.S. crude
stocks fell 1.8 million barrels in the week to April 18, a
2.3-million-barrel drop in gasoline supplies and a
100,000-barrel draw in distillate stocks.
(Editing by Ben Tan)
