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SINGAPORE, Mar 20 (Reuters) Oil prices dipped in opening trade on Monday, adding to a profit-taking sell-off late last week even as Nigeria's output suffered another blow.

US light, sweet crude for April delivery eased 10 cents to $62.67 a barrel in the opening minutes of electronic trade. Prices fell 81 cents on Friday, trimming the full week's gains to 4.7 percent after a series of volatile sessions.

Oil prices rallied last week as traders grew increasingly concerned that changes to U.S. gasoline specifications may cause inventories -- now near their highest in almost seven years -- to draw sharply before the summer driving period.

U.S. gasoline dipped 1.01 cents, or 0.54 percent, to $1.85 a gallon in early Monday trading, while its premium to crude remains near the five-month high struck last week.

Prices were also buoyed by the ongoing disruption in Nigerian exports and worries that Iran's nuclear row with the West could hit its exports, which overshadowed hefty crude stocks that many analysts now see as additional insurance by a fearful industry.

Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said he was not worried by swelling U.S. crude oil inventories, which also stand at their highest in nearly seven years.

''I believe, in these somewhat tense and uncertain times, it is only logical for consuming countries to build stocks,'' he said on Sunday. ''In normal situations very high stocks would have a depressing effect on prices, but these are not normal times.'' He also said current prices were not hurting the global economy.

The now month-long disruption to Nigeria's oil supplies worsened at the weekend after unidentified attackers blew up an oil pipeline in the southern Delta.

Italian oil company ENI, whose Agip unit operates the pipeline, confirmed an ''act of sabotage'' and said an unspecified quantity of production had been lost.

An industry source said the attack had cut 67,000 barrels per day (bpd) of output, which would bring the country's total outage to 622,000 bpd, just over a quarter of its total production.

U.S. fuel supplies, which dealers fear may fall steeply as an unusually large number of refineries shut down for maintenance during the spring, could get a filip when BP Plc.'s giant 460,000 bpd Texas City plant restarts later this month.

Sources familiar with operations at the plant, which has been shut for a meticulous six-month safety overhaul, said it would begin to restart on time by the end of this month.

It is the third biggest refinery in the United States.

Crude oil speculators on the NYMEX trimmed back their net short positions in the week to March 14, regulatory data showed, indicating fewer bets that prices will fall further.

REUTERS VJ RAI0556