Oil prices steadied above $70 a barrel on Friday as Nigerian crude exports continued unabated despite a strike by unions.
Brent crude, currently seen as the best indicator of world oil prices, fell one cent to $70.21 a barrel by 1200 GMT. U.S. light crude was up down 10 at $68.55.
Union leaders in Nigeria vowed to extend their strike against a rise in fuel prices to a third day on Friday, after talks with the government ended in a stalemate.
"It is likely that the outlook (in Nigeria) will remain uncertain as we approach the weekend positioning, making a directional bias difficult," said Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix.
The strike has so far not stopped shipments of Nigeria's gasoline-rich crude, but its government said it would no longer tolerate street blockades and intimidation by unionists, setting the stage for a more hostile face-off. Militant attacks on oil infrastructure have already cut about 25 percent of its output.
The majority of oil workers have complied with the strike directive, but Western multinationals have sustained production and exports by replacing union staff with management.
The market has pulled back from a 10-month high on Monday, losing nearly $2 in a three-day slide, pressured mid-week by an unexpected jump in U.S. crude stockpiles that took them to the highest in nine years on abundant imports and low refinery use.
This bolstered OPEC's case that supply is healthy and tight gasoline stocks are due to a lack of refining capacity.
"There is a lot of oil on the market, the stocks are very high," OPEC Secretary-General Abdullah al-Badri said on Thursday. "If we add more oil, it would not go to the refineries -- it would go to the stocks."
(Reuters, 22/06/2007)