(Reuters) - U.S crude oil is expected to average $80.22 a barrel in 2010, a Reuters poll showed on Tuesday, a slight drop from April's survey but still in line with expectations for continued price growth. The poll of 33 analysts showed a lower consensus monthly forecast for the first time in 12 months. In April the average forecast for 2010 was $81.06 a barrel, and forecasts had been consecutively higher each month from April 2009. "The recent oil price decline appears as a healthy correction to inflated prices," said Christophe Barret, global oil analyst at Credit Agricole CIB in London which raised its 2010 forecast to $78 from $76 since the April poll. "In the short term the overall oil supply/demand balance is expected to remain weak through the end of Q210 and to get support thereafter from driving season demand and better economic activity." Oil in New York has fallen steeply from a 2010 high of $87.15 reached earlier this month. It then slumped to touch a low of $64.24 on May 20, its weakest front-month price since July 2009. "Prices will find their floor around $70," said Frank Schallenberger at Landesbank, which has lowered its 2010 forecast to $76 from $78 since the April poll. "Chinese demand is still very high - we saw a new import record for crude in April. Also, worldwide economic growth of more than 4 percent in 2010 and 2011 will guarantee rising demand for oil," Schallenberger said. China's crude oil imports rose 31 percent in April from the previous year to a record 5.15 million barrels per day (bpd), or 21.17 million tonnes, the General Administration of the Customs said this month. "By the end of the year we will see $85-$90 again," said Schallenberger. SUSTAINABLE LONG TERM U.S. crude is expected to average $79.13 in the second quarter of 2010, down from $80.20 in the last poll. U.S. crude prices touched a low of $64.24 in intra-day trading last week from a high of $87.15 at the beginning of the month. Oil has traded in a $70-$80 range for most of the year. "The recent trading range somewhere between $70 and $85 seems sustainable longer term," said Thorsten Fischer at Royal Bank of Scotland, which lowered its 2010 forecast to $76.70 from $79.90. "Downside risks are concentrated near term, and include a double-dip recession and the start of monetary tightening...higher interest rates (would) mean that crude oil will become less attractive as an asset class." On Tuesday front month U.S. crude futures for July were down more than $2, trading at around $68 at 0940 GMT. EUROPEAN JITTERS A strengthening dollar and market wariness over Europe's response to a debt crisis in Greece and swollen budget deficits in other euro zone countries has stoked bearish sentiment in oil markets and across some asset classes in the past six weeks. "The past few days have shown once more just how much oil prices are under the spell of financial markets: while rising risk aversion has put strong pressure on oil prices in recent days, prices had previously been supported by high investor interest," said analyst Carsten Fritsch at Commerzbank. Fears of another financial crisis, a so-called double-dip recession, has boosted the safe-haven appeal of gold and U.S. and Asian government debt, and pulled investors away from riskier commodity assets like oil. In addition, U.S. crude inventories are at an all-time high at the delivery hub in Cushing, Oklahoma, which has weighed on front-month prices in recent weeks. "The market tends to have a surplus of crude oil, which speaks for lower prices in the medium term. We therefore anticipate a price drop during the second half of the year to $70 per barrel by year end," from Commerzbank's $71 in last month's forecast, said Fritsch.

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