UPDATE 9-Oil falls as Suez Canal reopens, dollar rallies; eyes on OPEC+ meeting

* Suez backlog to be cleared in 3-1/2 days -canal chairman
* Dollar gains as investors bet on strong U.S. recovery
* Saudi wants OPEC+ to extend oil cuts into June, source
says
* API data shows U.S. crude stocks rise, gasoline falls
-sources

(Adds API data)
By Devika Krishna Kumar
NEW YORK, March 30 (Reuters) - Oil prices slid more than 1%
on Tuesday as the Suez Canal reopened to traffic and the U.S.
dollar rallied.
Investors shifted focus to the upcoming OPEC+ ministerial
meeting on Thursday, where analysts expect the group to extend
supply curbs given dim demand prospects.
Brent crude LCOc1 fell 84 cents, or 1.3%, to settle at
$64.14 a barrel while West Texas Intermediate U.S. oil CLc1
ended the session down $1.01, or 1.6%, at $60.55 barrel.
The benchmarks held their losses in post-settlement trade
after industry data showed U.S. crude inventories swelled by 3.9
million barrels last week, sources said citing the American
Petroleum Institute's weekly report. Analysts in a Reuters poll
forecast a build of about 100,000 barrels. Government data is due on Wednesday at 10:30 a.m. EDT (1430
GMT)
Ships were moving through the Suez Canal again a day after
tugs refloated the Ever Given container carrier, which had
blocked the passage for almost a week. The backlog of 422 ships
could be cleared in 3-1/2 days, the canal's chairman said.
"The price gains that accumulated during the Suez blockade
were, as expected, short-lived and are now being erased with the
gradual return to normal traffic," Rystad Energy's oil markets
analyst Louise Dickson said.
The dollar =USD rose against major currencies and climbed
to a one-year high against the yen. A firmer
greenback makes oil priced in dollars more expensive in other
currencies.
With concerns about a shortage of physical supplies abating,
the market will watch Thursday's meeting of the Organization of
the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) and allies including
Russia, collectively known as OPEC+.
Saudi Arabia is prepared to accept an extension of
production cuts through June and to prolong its own additional
cuts amid the latest wave of coronavirus lockdowns, a source
briefed on the matter said on Monday. "The wobble we have seen in prices means that OPEC+ will
likely need to take a cautious approach once again," bank ING
said. "We are of the view that the group will likely hold output
levels unchanged."
JPMorgan believes OPEC+ will largely roll over its
production cuts into May and that Saudi Arabia will extend its
voluntary cut by two more months until the end of June.
"We expect the alliance to start adding production in
500,000 barrel per day (bpd) increments beginning in June and
lasting through August," it said in a research note.
Renewed lockdowns and problems with vaccinations could
prevent the recovery of up to 1 million bpd of oil demand in
2021, Rystad Energy said. One challenge in capping global supply is under-the-radar
exports by OPEC member Iran to China, ignoring U.S. and U.N.
sanctions on Tehran, according to traders and analysts.
China could receive up to 1 million bpd of Iranian crude
this month passed off as crude from other origins, they said.
(Addiional reporting by Ahmad Ghaddar in London, Aaron
Sheldrick in Tokyo; Editing by Marguerita Choy and Lisa
Shumaker)