Oil falls toward $72

Oil prices fell on Monday as a stronger dollar offset cold weather and reports of pipeline snags in oil exporters Iraq and Nigeria. Producer group Opec was set to leave output limits unchanged at a meeting in Angola on Tuesday, officials from the cartel said, and appeared likely to call for improved compliance with existing curbs.
US crude futures for January delivery, in their final day of trading before expiry later Monday, fell $1.23 a barrel to $72.13 a barrel by 1:18 pm EST (1818 GMT). The more actively traded February contract was down 95 cents at $73.47. In London, Brent crude was down 94 cents at $72.81.
The US dollar firmed to a six week high against the Japanese yen and stayed near a three-month high against the euro, as investors bet the US economy may recover faster than other regions from recession. Greece is facing a fiscal crisis that puts the country's credit-worthiness at risk and has shaken investor confidence in euro zone economies.
Oil prices have often fallen this year when the dollar firms, making crude more costly for holders of other currencies. A stronger dollar can also signal investors plowing funds into safe havens and away from assets considered more risky, such as commodities. Oil trading was thin during a holiday-shortened week and ahead of Tuesday's Opec meeting.
The Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (Opec) meets in Luanda, Angola to discuss production policy, but officials from the group plan no change to production targets and are satisfied with prices in their current range. Saudi Arabian Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi told reporters in Luanda on Monday that the group did not need to change output targets since the state of the oil market is "very good" and the world economy is growing gradually but steadily.
Nigerian militants said on Saturday they had carried out their first attack on an oil pipeline since the government offered them amnesty in October ahead of peace talks, which have faced delays. The alleged attack on a Royal Dutch Shell pipeline was not immediately confirmed. An Iraqi pipeline linking Kirkuk to Turkey's Ceyhan port stopped shipping its typical daily volume of 500,000 barrels of crude late Saturday.
Iraqi officials said they suspected sabotage of the pipeline, which was unlikely to resume shipments until later this week. Iranian troops partly withdrew from a disputed oil area in Iraq over the weekend, reducing tensions between two major crude exporters that had helped to boost oil prices by 1 percent on Friday.
Heavy snow and freezing temperatures in the US Northeast and Europe also pushed prices higher. US government data last Wednesday showed large declines in US crude and distillate inventories in the previous week, in part due to colder weather.