Oil below , shrugs off US gasoline stock drop

SINGAPORE, Apr 12 (Reuters) - Oil slipped below a barrel on Thursday, failing to gain ground despite a sharp fall in U.S.

gasoline inventories as crude stocks remain comfortable.

U.S. crude was down 8 cents at .93 a barrel by 0352 GMT, after a 12-cent gain on Wednesday. London Brent had yet to trade ahead of its expiry on Friday, after closing at .84 on Wednesday.

The latest snapshot of U.S. inventory levels showed that gasoline stocks slid 5.5 million barrels last week, far more than a 1.4 million-barrel drop analysts had forecast and taking stocks nearly 5 percent below the same time last year Gasoline futures fell 0.5 percent, after surging 2.2 percent on Wednesday to an eight-month high.

Rising gasoline prices have not discouraged Americans from driving, as weekly U.S. motor fuel demand reached a new record high for April, the government said on Wednesday.

Crude supplies rose 700,000 barrels, smaller than a forecast for a 1.5 million-barrel build and taking stocks 3 percent below the same time last year. But crude stocks at the key U.S. futures delivery hub of Cushing, Oklahoma, rose to stand 9 percent over last year.

''The sharp fall in gasoline inventory is more related to refinery issues than crude supply,'' Tobin Gorey, commodity strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia said. ''The crude level is still comfortable.'' Refinery outages, strong demand, and falling import levels have slashed U.S. gasoline supplies more than 12 percent since early February, at a time of year the oil industry typically boosts storage for the summer driving season.

Crude oil is still up more than 20 percent from this year's low of .90 a barrel in January despite a 6 percent plunge in the past week as Iran released 15 British military personnel.

Traders were still eyeing tension between Iran and the West as a top Iranian official on Wednesday dismissed doubts over Tehran's recent declaration it had begun industrial enrichment of uranium, a process the West believes could lead to making bombs rather than the nuclear fuel Iran says it needs.

The Iran tension have helped lift London Brent crude to a record premium of around a barrel this week against U.S.

crude, which has been weighed down by the relatively high stocks at Cushing.

REUTERS LPB RK1155