NYMEX crude falls below $101 on economic worries

SYDNEY (Reuters) - U.S. crude futures fell nearly $1 to dip below $101 barrel on Monday due to profit taking and amid growing worries that a recession in top consumer the United States would cut global energy demand.

* NYMEX crude for May delivery fell 83 cents to $101.01 a barrel in Globex electronic trading by 2223 GMT. It had settled down 70 cents to $101.84 a barrel on Friday, after falling as low as $98.65 earlier in the session.

* Petroleum prices will range between $80 and $110 per barrel for the rest of 2008, OPEC President Chakib Khelil said on Saturday.

Khelil, who is also Algerian energy and mines minister, told Algerian television OPEC was under "big pressures" from consuming nations that like to portray the group as responsible for high oil prices, when in fact the market was responding to U.S. economic problems and the falling dollar.

* Mexico, top crude supplier to the United States, reopened oil-exporting ports Coatzacoalcos and Dos Bocas on Friday after being closed by bad weather, the government said.

The two ports, along with Cayo Arcas, ship about 80 percent of Mexico's crude exports. Authorities had shut Coatzacoalcos and Dos Bocas on Wednesday.

* Crude oil speculators on the New York Mercantile Exchange cut net long positions last week, according to data from the commodity Futures Trading Commission released Friday.

Net crude long positions fell to 86,352 in the week ended March 18, down from 113,307 the previous week, which was the highest net long position since an all-time high of 127,291 hit on July 31.

* Oil and other commodities have struck a series of record highs since the beginning of the year as investors fled stock markets and took refuge in dollar-denominated assets.

But investors nervous about the outlook of the global economy are cashing in on recent record prices in commodities and energy.