* Oil's slide Friday to lowest since Dec. 15 seen overdone
* U.S. mid-Atlantic hit by blizzard
* Iran raises stakes in nuclear dispute
(Previous PERTH, adds quote paragraph 3, updates prices)
LONDON, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Oil rose almost $1 a barrel on
Monday to above $72 as prices rebounded from the previous
session's decline to a near two-month low, supported by a weaker
U.S. dollar.
Crude also recovered as European stocks bucked a three-day
losing run, helping stabilise global shares, although euro zone
sovereign debt worries remained close to the surface. Metals
including copper rose.
"The market is bouncing a little bit, which you'd expect
after Friday's extremely overdone sharp fall," said Christopher
Bellew, a broker at Bache Commodities."
"Although the market did appear to break a lot of technical
support on Friday, I think this was a bit of a trap and we'll
make our way back higher."
U.S. crude for March <CLc1> was up 93 cents at $72.12 a
barrel by 0943 GMT. The contract fell as low as $69.50 on
Friday, the lowest since Dec. 15. Brent crude <LCOc1> rose 85
cents to $70.44.
A cold snap in the U.S. mid-Atlantic region, an area heavily
dependent on home heating oil and natural gas supplies, and
escalating tensions between Iran and western nations also lent
support to prices.
The U.S. dollar was weaker against a basket of currencies
<.DXY>. Dollar weakness makes crude and other dollar-priced
commodities cheaper for holders of other currencies.
Major commodity markets are testing 200-day moving averages
after sharp sell-offs in the past three weeks, but important
support level appears to have held for U.S. crude, as well as
copper and gold.
"For now, we would venture to say that a measure of
stability could be with us over the next day or two," said
Edward Meir, analyst at MF Global, in a report.
"However, most charts still look precarious and at best,
rallies could return values back over broken trend lines with
little assurance that these gains will be sustained."
A blizzard dumped 2 ft (0.5m) of snow across much of the
U.S. mid-Atlantic on Saturday, threatening record snowfall and
leaving tens of thousands without power. []
The United States and Germany have threatened carefully
targeted new sanctions against Iran, which gave instructions on
Sunday for the production of higher-grade nuclear reactor fuel.
[]
Oil fell 2.7 percent on Friday as a tepid employment report
in the United States, the world's top energy consumer,
heightened worries of a sluggish recovery in fuel demand. It has
lost nearly 10 percent this year.
(Reporting by Fayen Wong in Perth and Alex Lawler; Editing by
Amanda Cooper)
