By Surabhi Sahu Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES SINGAPORE (Dow Jones)--Crude-oil futures rose in Asia Wednesday, with Iran's threats to cut supply and Tuesday's bombings in Nigeria offsetting concerns about Greek debt amid protests in that country against austerity measures demanded by the European Union. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in March traded at $99.14 a barrel at 0733 GMT, up $0.73 in the Globex electronic session. March Brent crude on London's ICE Futures exchange rose $0.34 to $116.57 a barrel. Positive American Petroleum Institute data on falling U.S. crude stocks and news of an unscheduled outage at the Horizon oilsands mine owned by Canadian oil and gas major Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. (CNQ) gave traders a reason to start buying, narrowing WTI-Brent spreads, some executives said. API data Tuesday showed that stocks for the week ended Feb. 3 fell by 4.533 million barrels, while 11 analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires earlier had estimated they rose by 2.7 million barrels. The closely-watched government survey from the Energy Information Administration is due late Wednesday. "Any deviation [in EIA data] from expectations will impact prices. But it will be a fairly short term driver as the market will scout quickly for the next number or cue," Fat Prophets resource analyst David Lennox said. WTI fundamentals remain decidedly bearish as crude stocks are likely to increase appreciably through this quarter, Jim Ritterbusch at Ritterbusch & Associates said in a note. Still, "macroeconomic guidance in both the currency and equity markets appears well entrenched in a positive direction for the time being. And while the Iranian risk factor appears to have stabilized for now, a base or core long position within the crude futures would appear well established as long as EU oil sanctions continue to move forward." Ritterbusch also said the U.S. benchmark will likely remain well above Tuesday's low of $95.48 a barrel for a week or so. Investors will be watching out for fresh cues Thursday when euro-zone finance ministers meet to discuss the Greek bailout, a Tokyo-based trader said, adding that prices will move higher if the country edges closer to a deal. Nymex reformulated gasoline blendstock for March--the benchmark gasoline contract--rose 65 points to $2.9340 a gallon, while March heating oil traded at $3.1970, 61 points higher. ICE gasoil for February changed hands at $997.25 a metric ton, up $2.00 from Tuesday's settlement. -By Surabhi Sahu, Dow Jones Newswires; +65 6415 4086; surabhi.sahu@dowjones.com

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