(Updates prices, adds details)
By Santosh Menon
LONDON, May 12 (Reuters) - Oil eased towards $125 a barrel
on Monday, as a stronger dollar and profit-taking put the brakes
on a rally that took it to record peaks last week.
U.S. light crude for June delivery <CLc1> fell 77 cents to
$125.19 a barrel by 1149 GMT, off Friday's new record high of
$126.27 hit on supply concerns and a rush of speculator buying.
London Brent crude <LCOc1> fell 77 cents to $124.63.
"The stronger dollar could...lead to some profit-taking in
energy," said Edward Meir at MF Global, adding that charts
showed much of the oil complex to be heavily overbought and
prone to a short-term correction.
Crude oil speculators on the New York Mercantile Exchange
increased net long positions in crude oil to 63,218 in the week
to May 6, up from 53,311 in preceding week, data from the
Commodity Futures Trading Commission showed on Friday.
The dollar rose on Monday, closing in on a two-month high
against a basket of currencies as a slight rise in risk appetite
and growing speculation that cuts to U.S. interest rates may
soon end boosted the currency.[]
Oil has jumped about 13 percent since slipping to $110.53 a
barrel on May 1, as investors seized on supply disruptions in
the North Sea and Nigeria, and galloping demand for distillate
fuels, notably diesel.
ICE Gas oil futures <LGOc1> fell more than $8 on Monday on
the expiry of the prompt contract, after rising to near last
week's record high of $1,210 a tonne in early trading.
Some analysts have attributed the gains in oil to a wave of
fund money pouring into commodities, given the weaknesses in
other financial markets.
A recent Sanford C. Bernstein study said that investment
flows in the Standard & Poor's GSCI index and Dow Jones-AIG
Commodity Index had risen to $250 billion so far this year, up
from $169 billion at the start of the year.
Oil's runaway gains prompted talk last week OPEC could
consider boosting output before its next scheduled meeting in
September should crude oil prices keep rising. [].
But oil ministers from Ecuador, Qatar, UAE and an Iranian
oil official said there were no plans for an early meeting as
soaring prices were out of OPEC's control.
Data released by China on Monday showed that crude oil
imports fell 3.9 percent in April from a year earlier, the first
decline in 18 months, after refiners slashed purchases from
March's record high and stepped up refined fuel imports.
China, which is likely to overtake Japan as the world's
second-largest crude buyer after the U.S., bought 14.24 million
tonnes or 3.47 million barrels per day of crude in April, down
from an all-time high of 4.07 million bpd in March.
(Additional reporting by Fayen Wong in Perth, Editing by
William Hardy)
