Crude oil rose above $117 a barrel on Monday for the first time after OPEC said it would maintain current production levels, rejecting calls from Japan and Britain to raise output.

Abdalla Salem el-Badri, the secretary general of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, said Sunday in Rome that there was no shortage of oil in the market and blamed the weak dollar and speculators for high prices.

And Chakib Khelil, Algeria's energy minister and the president of OPEC, said that even if it raised production, "we will not find people to buy the increment," according a report on Sunday by Kuwait's state news agency.

Bill Farren-Price, director of energy at Medley Global Advisors in London, said: "The price seems to be rising inexorably towards $120. OPEC has a very limited amount of spare capacity left and maybe they're trying to keep that in case there's actual physical disruption."

Light sweet crude oil for May delivery settled at a record $117.48 per barrel, up 79 cents, on the New York Mercantile Exchange, after reaching an intraday high of $117.76. Futures are up 85 percent from a year ago.

Prices were supported by potential supply disruptions in Nigeria, the largest African producer, and a possible strike at a refinery in Scotland.

The main militant group in Nigeria's oil-rich Niger Delta said it had sabotaged a pipeline operated by a unit of Royal Dutch Shell last Thursday.

Ineos Group Holdings, a closely held chemicals company, may have until Friday to prevent a potential month-long shutdown of its 200,000 barrel-a-day refinery at Grangemouth, Scotland, causing possible fuel shortages in the region.

A full shutdown of the refinery, Britain's sixth-largest, may cut output for as long as a month after Unite, the refinery's largest union, failed to agree on a pension proposal, the union said last week.

Oil prices over $117 a barrel are slowing world economic growth, said John Lipsky, first deputy managing director of the International Monetary Fund.

"It's dampening growth - that's for sure, but of course it is benefiting exporters," he said. "It's going to slow growth, as we've said before. It's one of the many factors this year, globally."

Lipsky said IMF assumptions for world growth were based on slightly lower prices than at present for oil.

Oil at over $117 a barrel should give producers every incentive to pump more, analysts say, but the supply response to record prices has been limited and few predict that would change any time soon.

Supply from outside OPEC has missed forecasts in recent years, despite a surge in oil prices from $20 in early 2002.

While oil companies are investing more, much of the rise is being eroded by climbing costs. Access to large reserves is getting harder and projects are becoming more complex, increasing the risk of delays.

"The international oil companies don't have as much access to the oil as they had in the past," said Adam Sieminski, chief energy economist at Deutsche Bank. "That and other hindrances are slowing down the supply response."