Oil steadies near record on supply concerns

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices steadied on Friday, within striking distance of a record high amid falling U.S. inventories in the midst of driving season and problems with African crude production.

Benchmark London Brent LCOc1 settled 3 cents lower at $77.64 a barrel, near the peak $78.65 hit last August. U.S. crude CLc1 settled down 35 cents at $75.57 a barrel.

Support has come from rising demand in the United States and a spate of refinery outages that have drained inventories in the world's top consumer.

"Oil demand seems to be robust. There is a feeling that the market will become tighter and there is concern about prompt supplies," said Tony Nunan, risk management executive at Tokyo-based Mitsubishi.

Gasoline stocks, which were expected by analysts to rise, instead fell by 2.3 million barrels in the week to July 13, a government report said on Wednesday.

Prices also were on the rise after Total cut output by half at its 220,000-barrel-per-day Dalia field in Angola. Total said on Friday it had lifted a force majeure on exports and supply should return quickly to normal.

The outage added to supply losses from Africa. In Nigeria, almost 550,000 bpd, or 18 percent of the country's oil capacity, remain shut because of attacks on the country's oil industry.

Economic growth in China, the world's second-largest consumer, accelerated to 11.9 percent in the second quarter, an 11-1/2-year high, and crude imports in June rose 20 percent from a year ago.

Other Asian economies also are proving resilient to surging energy prices. Crude imports by South Korea, the world's fourth-largest buyer, rose 3.8 percent from a year ago in June.

Despite supply concerns, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has yet to relax supply curbs in place since last November and analysts do not expect the group to do so any time soon.

(Reporting by Matthew Robinson in New York, Alex Lawler in London, and Maryelle Demongeot in Singapore)