By Paddy Gourlay Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES LONDON (Dow Jones)--Oil futures are edging higher Monday morning amid gains in European equity markets, although the move is subdued by the euro softening against the dollar. Crude benchmarks have recovered from the six-week lows seen Friday, but the market looks directionless on a quiet macroeconomic news day. An Atlantic tropical storm called Danielle could strengthen into a hurricane by Tuesday, warns National Hurricane Center, but the chances are slim that it will veer toward the oil-producing region of the Gulf of Mexico. "Danielle is carrying sustained winds of 40 miles per hour, but as of now, it is posing no threat to energy assets and is expected to curve northwards and onto the open seas later in the week," pointed out Ed Meir, an analyst at MF Global. Another tropical storm called Frank is moving up the Pacific west coast of Mexico. At 1104 GMT, the front-month October Brent contract on London's ICE futures exchange is 33 cents higher at $74.59 a barrel. Trade is average with around 29,000 lots changing hands. The front-month October contract on the New York Mercantile Exchange, called West Texas Intermediate, is trading 24 cents higher at $74.06 a barrel. Some 20,000 lots have traded. The ICE's gasoil contract for September delivery is $1.25 higher at $631.50 a metric ton, while Nymex gasoline for September delivery is 0.39 cents up at 192.90 cents a gallon. Prices have been under pressure over the last two weeks as concerns about faltering economic growth, initially triggered by downbeat comments from the U.S. Federal Reserve and compounded by U.S. crude and oil-product stockpiles reaching record levels. But growing stockpiles are also occurring outside of the world's largest oil consumer. "OECD stock levels are at 61 days of forward cover and judging by the latest numbers they are not expected to fall significantly over the winter," pointed out London brokers PVM. China's commercial crude oil stockpiles also rose 1.3% by the end of July compared with the previous month, the state-controlled Xinhua News Agency reported Monday. This brings them to a fresh high this year of 29.2 million tons, or around 214 million barrels. Meanwhile, last week's fall in oil futures coincided with speculators exiting long oil positions in both the main exchanges, analyst noted. Money managers, including hedge funds, cut their net long position in Nymex crude-oil futures by 16% to 108,874 in the week ended Aug. 17, according to data released Friday by the Commodity Futures Trading Commission. Overall "the net-length in WTI, RBOB and (U.S.) heating oil was cut by 78 million barrels, equivalent to daily sales of 15.7 million barrels a day in the reporting week," noted David Wech, an analyst at JBC Energy. Money managers also cut their net long positions in Brent futures on the ICE exchange to 2,560, down from 7,420 from the week before. The American Petroleum Institute and the U.S. Department of Energy will release weekly oil inventory statistics Tuesday and Wednesday respectively, and there is a slew of macro reports from Tuesday onwards, culminating in a second estimate of second-quarter U.S. growth on Friday. By Paddy Gourlay, Dow Jones Newswires, +44 (0)20-7842-9364; patrick.gourlay@dowjones.com

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