By Virginia Harrison, MarketWatch
SYDNEY (MarketWatch) — Crude-oil futures rose in electronic trading Wednesday, staying on track for a seventh session of gains ahead of a weekly report that is expected to show a decline in U.S. inventories.
Crude for February delivery CL2G -0.07% added 11 cents, or 0.1%, to $101.45 a barrel on Globex during Asian trading hours. The rise extends a 1.7% gain for crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange during the North American session.
The risk of supply disruptions, with reports Iran has threatened to cut off shipments through the Strait of Hormuz — a key shipping route for oil tankers — helped push crude higher. Read more on Tuesday's crude session.
“After a year in which demand risk has been the primary oil market preoccupation, with the waxing and very occasional waning of sovereign debt concerns often being directly reflected in oil price dynamics, the past few weeks have seen a resurgence in more traditional supply-side concerns,” strategists at Barclays Capital said.
The strategists added there are “an unusually large number of significant supply-side concerns at the moment, encompassing Iraq, Iran, Nigeria and a long tail of other producers.”
Later Wednesday the American Petroleum Institute (API) is due to release its weekly inventory data, followed by the more closely watched U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) report on Thursday.
Analysts polled by Platts forecast a 2.3-million barrel decline in U.S. commercial crude stocks for the week ended December 23.
The dollar index DXY -0.01% , which tracks the U.S. unit against six major currencies, rose to 79.801, from 79.798 in North American trading late Tuesday.
Virginia Harrison is a MarketWatch reporter based in Sydney.
