Oil fell a dollar Monday after Nigerian oil unions suspended a two-day strike that had threatened to halt oil shipments from the world's eighth-largest oil exporter over the weekend .
London Brent crude fell $1.01 to $69.70 a barrel. U.S. crude fell 80 cents to $64.40, after surging more than $1.00 on Friday. The market was thin due to holidays in both the UK and the United States.
Nigerian Union leaders said Saturday that workers at the national oil company had suspended a strike after the government agreed to a pay raise and other benefits, although oil traders remained anxious over exports.
Output from the world's eighth-largest exporter is already down by about a quarter, after an 18-month campaign of militant attacks against oil installations.
Gas worries crimp vacation plans
On Friday gunmen kidnapped nine foreign oil workers and a Nigerian colleague from a ship off the coast of Nigeria, taking the total number of foreign hostages to 25.
The U.S. Memorial Day holiday on Monday marks the start of the peak demand summer driving season, when motorists hit the roads for vacation.
Record-high pump prices of $3.23 a gallon are not expected to have deterred vacationers from their road trips, said motoring group AAA.
Concern that gasoline supplies might run short in the U.S., which is the world's largest energy consumer, helped drive oil prices to a nine-month high last week.
U.S. gasoline futures bucked the fall in crude futures and were little changed Monday.
A series of refinery outages have cut U.S. gasoline supplies by 15 percent since the winter, reversing the seasonal trend to stockpile motor fuels ready for summer.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has laid part of the blame for recent oil price spikes on U.S. motor fuel supply problems, and has resisted consumer calls to pump more crude.
"Production from OPEC will stay stable," a senior OPEC delegate told Reuters on Monday. "There is no reason to change. On the crude side, the market is well balanced."
Refinery capacity constraints were likely to affect markets in consumer countries for some time, he added.
Crude oil speculators boosted their net long positions by more than a fifth on the New York Mercantile Exchange in the week to May 22, betting that prices would rise further. Gasoline speculators in contrast trimmed net length.
Your Ads At Here
