Oil falls towards $61 as rally's sustainability in question

By Jack Stubbs

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil fell more than $1 towards $61 a barrel on Wednesday, failing to build on gains of over 1 percent in the previous session as analysts said a recent rally was overblown.

"The lack of follow-through higher yesterday is a worry and there's plenty of reason to be neutral here and observe carefully," PVM Oil Associates director and technical analyst Robin Bieber said.

Oil prices have risen more than 35 percent since hitting an almost six-year low of $45.19 in January, in an ascent fuelled by industry spending cutbacks and falling U.S. rig counts.

Benchmark Brent crude futures were down $1.40 at $61.13 by 1240 GMT, having fallen to a low of $61.05 earlier in the session. U.S. crude traded at $52.50 a barrel, down $1.03.

"The contracts will look very fragile and accident-prone if one or two more contracts fail to hold key support," Bieber said.

Volumes were significantly reduced in early trading as several Asian countries started the Lunar New Year holidays, which last for the rest of the week.

BNP Paribas analysts said the recent surge in prices was premature given record-high U.S. crude stocks.

"U.S. refinery outages, through seasonal maintenance and industrial action, will weaken U.S. crude demand, exacerbating the crude stock excess in the near term," oil strategists Gareth Lewis-Davies and Harry Tchilinguirian said in a note to traders.

U.S. commercial crude oil stockpiles are already at their highest since records began and are expected to have risen again last week by 3.1 million barrels, a preliminary Reuters survey showed on Tuesday.

U.S. stocks data from industry group the American Petroleum Institute is due later on Wednesday.

Instability in the Middle East helped support the market, however, and Commerzbank analysts said prices could turn positive later on Wednesday following the prior session's 2015 high of $63.

"Yesterday's price response shows that oil prices still want to climb," senior oil and commodities analyst Carsten Fritsch said. "Brent ... is profiting from the renewed shift in focus towards supply risks."

Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi called on Tuesday for a United Nations resolution mandating an international coalition to intervene in Libya against Islamic State militants.

Libya's oil exports have collapsed to less than 200,000 barrels per day (bpd), down from 1.6 million bpd before the 2011 civil war, as violence in the country has shut all major ports.

(Additional reporting by Henning Gloystein in Singapore; Editing by Dale Hudson and Jane Merriman)