SINGAPORE, May 2 (Reuters) - U.S. crude fell for the first time in four sessions on Monday after Saudi Arabia increased production in April and NATO air strikes homed in on Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi's military.
A stronger dollar following last week's slide deterred investors from piling up further into commodities. Federal Reserve reassurance that economic stimulus would continue last week helped send U.S. crude to a 31-month high above $114.
FUNDAMENTALS
* U.S. crude for June
* Saudi Arabia's crude oil output edged back up in April to around 8.5 million barrels per day (bpd) from roughly 8.3 million bpd in March as demand picked up, Saudi-based industry sources said on Sunday. [ID:nLDE74005M]
* Libya said on Sunday that Muammar Gaddafi's youngest son and three grandchildren were killed in a NATO air strike. Britain said that while it was not targeting the leader, it was homing in on the regime's military machine. [ID:nLDE73T0D1]
* Libyan government spokesman Mussa Ibrahim said Gaddafi was unharmed and in good health despite what he called "a direct operation to assassinate the leader of this country".
* The British and Italian embassies in Tripoli were attacked after Gaddafi loyalists were shown on Libyan television vowing vengeance following the air strike.
* A deal to remove Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh looked doomed on Sunday after he refused to sign, raising the threat of more instability in the Arab state. [ID:nLDE74004W]
* Women and children in the besieged Syrian city of Deraa chanted "God is greatest against the tyrant" from rooftops in the night after troops backed by tanks intensified a crackdown on the city, a resident said. [ID:nLDE73T0CL]
* Money managers increased their net-long crude futures and options positions on the New York Mercantile Exchange by 11,202 to 301,118 in the week to April 26, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said on Friday, just shy of an all-time high of 311,632 reached in March. [ID:nEMS4TV36F]
MARKET NEWS
* Global markets closed out a week to remember on Friday as Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke's pledge to keep cheap money flowing through the economy pushed the Nasdaq to a 10-year high, and gold and silver broke records.
* But the dollar strengthened by nearly 0.3 percent against a basket of currencies on Monday, reducing the appeal of commodities as an alternative investment.
RECENT CRUDE OIL TRADES
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(Reporting by Alejandro Barbajosa)