(Reuters) - Oil hovered just below a record $117 a barrel on Monday, supported by worries of supply disruptions in Nigeria and comments by OPEC that it saw no need to increase production.
U.S. light crude for May delivery rose 6 cents to $116.75 a barrel by 2310 GMT. It settled up $1.83 at $116.69 a barrel on Friday, hitting a record $117.
London Brent crude rose 28 cents to $114.20.
The Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) sees no need to raise oil production to counter high oil prices, the OPEC President said on Sunday.
"No," said Chakib Khelil, who is also Algeria's Energy and Mines Minister, when asked by reporters whether OPEC would raise production. He added that raising production would have no impact on prices as the market was well-supplied.
Khelil also said that a previous output increase had failed to prices down last year.
Separately, OPEC Secretary General Abdullah al-Badri said oil prices could rise higher still should the U.S. dollar weaken further.
Oil prices have jumped 22 percent since the start of the year largely due to a tumbling U.S. dollar, geopolitical tensions in the Middle East and unrest in major oil exporter Nigeria.
A Nigerian rebel group said Friday it had sabotaged a major oil pipeline operated by Royal Dutch Shell and vowed to step up attacks on oil installations.
Officials at Shell, which is currently pumping 400,000 barrels per day below capacity in the OPEC nation due to sabotage and security concerns, confirmed a small amount of production had been shut in.
Workers at the port of Marseille voted on Sunday to suspend a strike against dock reforms, an official of the CGT union said on Sunday, but said a new 24 hour stoppage was planned for Wednesday.
"We're looking more to irregular actions, less spectacular but which allow us to keep going for a longer time," said Pascal Galeote, secretary general of the Marseille port workers section of the CGT.
The strike, which started on Thursday, has blocked traffic at France's biggest oil port, Fos Lavera, and kept around 20 ships at the quayside on Sunday. The Fos Lavera port supplies crude to eight refineries in southeast France that have a total capacity of about 800,000 barrels per day.
Comments from the U.S. government that it won't delay its plan to buy oil this summer for the Strategic Petroleum Reserve even if crude prices stay above $100 a barrel also provided underlying support for oil prices.
Crude oil speculators on the New York Mercantile Exchange increased their net long positions last week, according to data from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission released Friday.
Net crude long positions rose to 66,526 in the week to April 15, up from 64,699 in the week to April 8.