Mumbai: Crude oil prices stayed near record levels just below $122 today on supply concerns and a weak US currency despite news of a rise in US inventories.

US light sweet crude for June delivery on the New York Mercantile Exchange was nine cents lower at $121.75 in Asian trade.

The contract closed on the New York exchange at a record high of $121.84 on Tuesday after it leapt as high as $122.73 per barrel, an all-time intraday high.

London's North Sea Brent crude for June also reached a new peak at $120.99 a barrel on Tuesday before slipping back to settle at a high of $120.31.

Royal Dutch Shell Plc yesterday reported a militant attack in Nigeria, where the company is losing 164,000 barrels of crude output every day.

Output from Nigeria declined 160,000 barrels to 1.88 million barrels a day last month, the lowest since August 1999.

Runaway oil prices have almost doubled in the past year and have surged by more than $20 since the start of 2008.

Record crude oil prices are expected to give OPEC an over $1 trillion bonanza this year, according to the US government's top energy forecasting agency.

Net oil export earnings from the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries are forecast to skyrocket 57 per cent from last year's $674 billion to $1.06 trillion this year and then decline to $990 billion in 2009 after an expected contraction in oil prices, the Energy Information Administration said in its new forecast.