(Recasts lead, updates prices para 2)
SINGAPORE, April 7 (Reuters) - Oil prices rose half a
dollar to a one-week high near $107 a barrel on Monday as
traders feared more losses for the dollar and OPEC's secretary
general suggested the group saw little need to pump more oil.
U.S. light, sweet crude for May delivery <CLc1> rose 38
cents or 0.4 percent to $106.61 a barrel by 0638 GMT after
leaping $2.40 a barrel on Friday, recouping all of the week's
earlier losses as investors sought shelter from the falling
U.S. dollar.
Prices hit an earlier high of $106.91.
London Brent crude <LCOc1> rose 14 cents to $105.04.
The dollar fell on Friday after a U.S. government report
showed employers slashed payrolls a third-straight month in
March, cutting 80,000 jobs, the biggest monthly decline in five
years. []
Although it rallied against the yen on Monday as traders
focused on fund allocations by Japanese investors at the start
of the fiscal year, most commodity prices were broadly higher
as traders anticipated a continued shift of money into the
sector.
"The key driver will be continued financial investors
inflows into oil," said Societe Generale in a report,
reasserting its $107.50 forecast for average oil prices in the
second quarter.
"On balance, we take comfort in the fact that front-month
crude prices appear to have found a floor at $100, and appear
to be trending sideways."
As oil prices resume climbing toward their March 17 record
high of $111.80, OPEC officials have stuck to their familiar
refrain over the well-supplied state of the market.
"Oil supply to the market is enough and high oil prices are
not due to a shortage of crude but rather it is because of the
decrease in the dollar's value, shortage of refinery capacity
and some political tensions in the world," OPEC
Secretary-General Abdullah al-Badri was quoted as saying by
Iran's official IRNA news agency.
"OPEC is not under any pressure... to raise crude output,"
Badri told reporters in Tehran, IRNA reported, adding that
there were no plans to hold an emergency meeting ahead of its
next planned gathering in September. []
OPEC is also concerned about the potential impact of an
economic slowdown in the United States on oil demand from the
world's biggest consumer.
Data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed
average implied oil demand in the United States over the first
13 weeks of the year down more than 479,000 barrels per day
(bpd) from a year ago.
Crude oil speculators on the New York Mercantile Exchange
have more than halved their bullish price bets since they
neared an all-time peak in mid-March, regulatory data showed.
Net long positions last week slipped to 47,073 lots from
53,892 in the previous week. []
Friday's gains had also been fuelled by news of a fire at
Exxon Mobil's <XOM.N> 150,000-bpd Los Angeles-area refinery in
Torrance, California, which forced the closure of a
hydrotreater, raising concerns about summer gasoline supplies.
[]
(Reporting by Jonathan Leff; Editing by Ramthan Hussain)
