UPDATE 6-Oil falls as U.S. jobless claims hit four-month peak
* U.S. oil inventories at highest level since 1990
* Coming up: U.S. March nonfarm payrolls 8:30 a.m. EDT Friday
(Recasts, adds updated prices, market activity; changes dateline, pvs LONDON)
NEW YORK, April 4 (Reuters) - Crude oil prices fell on Thursday after an increase in new U.S. claims for unemployment benefits reinforced concerns about sputtering economic growth in the top global oil consumer.
U.S. initial jobless claims hit a four-month high last week, a third consecutive rise, suggesting the labor market recovery lost some steam in March.
Initial claims for state unemployment benefits increased 28,000 to a seasonally adjusted 385,000, the highest since November, the Labor Department said on Thursday.
"The jobless claims added to the pressure after the Bank of Japan's decision to pump money created a big rally in the dollar and U.S. debt in a safe-haven play," said Phil Flynn, analyst at Price Futures Group in Chicago.
The Bank of Japan on Thursday said it would inject about $1.4 trillion into the economy in less than two years, pushing the dollar up sharply versus the yen as U.S. Treasury debt prices also advanced.
Brent May crude fell $1.16 to $105.95 a barrel by 11:25 a.m. EDT (1525 GMT), having fallen to a 2013 low at $105.73.
Brent tumbled $3.58 on Wednesday, its biggest one-day fall since early November.
U.S. May crude was down $1.47 at $92.98 a barrel, having fallen to $92.56, the lowest intraday price since March.
Thursday's U.S. jobless claims report arrives a day after a report of weaker-than-expected private-sector jobs growth in March, and a day ahead of the government's closely watched nonfarm payrolls report for March.
Continuing to weigh on crude futures was a rise in U.S. crude oil inventories last week, reported on Wednesday by the Energy Information Administration.
The inventory boost put U.S. commercial stocks at 388.62 million barrels, the most since 1990 and close to the record 391.9 million barrels reached in 1982, the year the EIA started tracking inventories.
(Reporting by Robert Gibbons in New York, Ron Bousso in London and Luke Pachymuthu in Singapore; editing by John Wallace)