By Gurdeep Singh Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES SINGAPORE (Dow Jones)--Crude-oil futures rose slightly in Asian trade Wednesday, spurred by largely higher regional equities and a weaker U.S. dollar against major currencies. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in September traded at $87.35 a barrel at 0654 GMT, up $0.70 in the Globex electronic session. October Brent crude on London's ICE Futures exchange rose $0.65 to $109.78 a barrel. Oil prices remain under the spell of economic news coming out of the euro zone and the U.S., although traders will also focus on the weekly U.S. inventory data later in the day, after a surprisingly bullish crude stocks report last week helped dilute bearish sentiment. "Although debt issues mainly across Europe and the U.S. continue to dominate much of the economic headline space, the oil complex is preoccupied with connecting the dots between downsized economic growth expectations and a reduction in oil demand forecasts across this year and next," Jim Ritterbusch at Ritterbusch and Associates said. In the near term, traders will likely continue to focus on equities as well USD-EUR levels after Germany reported weaker-than-expected gross domestic product data Tuesday amid a deepening crisis in the euro-zone. Crude prices tend to decline if the dollar strengthens as it makes oil expensive for buyers holding other currencies. The Department of Energy data, due 10:30 a.m. EDT, are expected to show a 600,000-barrel decline in crude stocks, even as refiners trim operations by 0.2 percentage point from 90% a week earlier. The data, for the week ended Aug. 12, may also show gasoline stocks fell 1.2 million barrels, while stocks of distillates such as diesel and heating oil rose by 500,000 barrels, analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires said. Nymex reformulated gasoline blendstock for September--the benchmark gasoline contract--rose 232 points to $2.8770 a gallon, while September heating oil traded at $2.9583, 257 points higher. ICE gasoil for September changed hands at $931.25 a metric ton, up $3.75 from Tuesday's settlement. -By Gurdeep Singh, Dow Jones Newswires; 65-6415 4064; gurdeep.singh@dowjones.com

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