Oil retreats after 3-day climb
Crude prices turn around after reaching an eight-month high as investors think the recent run-up may have gone too far.
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| Click on the chart to see other commodity prices. |
LONDON (Reuters) -- Oil eased toward $72 a barrel Friday, a day after reaching a near eight-month high, pressured by a firmer dollar and views that prices have risen too far despite improving economic sentiment.
Light, sweet crude for July delivery fell 64 cents to settle at $72.68 a barrel. Despite Friday's retreat, it was the highest closing price since Oct. 20 after a three-day rally, making it look overvalued to some analysts.
"Most commodity markets are still quite overbought and could be subject to a modest sell-off next week," said Edward Meir, analyst at MF Global. "We are getting to a stage where the steep run-up in prices has arguably over-discounted the modest brightening we are seeing in the U.S. macro picture."
Adding downward pressure, the U.S. dollar rebounded against the euro. A stronger dollar can weaken commodity markets by cutting into the purchasing power of buyers using other currencies.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, meanwhile, further reduced its forecast for world oil consumption this year, but said the worst appeared to be over for the oil market.
"As the world economy stabilizes, the world oil demand appears to be settling down," OPEC said in its Monthly Oil Market Report. "There are no significant downward revisions to our previous oil demand forecasts."
Two other closely watched forecasters, the U.S. Energy Information Administration and the International Energy Agency, slightly raised their demand estimates this week, after months of downward revisions.
Stronger-than-expected Chinese economic data helped limit oil's losses.
Official figures showed a rebound in China's industrial growth and retail sales in May, after U.S. data on Thursday showed an increase in retail sales and a slowdown in weekly jobless claims.
Data from China also showed refinery output in the world's No. 2 energy user rose 10.7% in May versus a year earlier. It was the third monthly rise in seven months to a record high.
Concerns over tightening gasoline supplies have given oil an extra boost this week.
Energy company Valero (VLO, Fortune 500) said Thursday it will shut its refinery on the Caribbean island of Aruba for the summer due to weak profit margins. The United States has been hit by a spate of refinery outages in recent weeks. 
