By Eric Yep Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES SINGAPORE (Dow Jones)--Crude-oil futures are slightly lower but rangebound in Asia as investors look to the market for further cues after Chinese manufacturing data announced earlier Monday had little impact. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in June traded at $103.63 a barrel at 0644 GMT, down $0.25 in the Globex electronic session. June Brent crude on London's ICE Futures exchange fell $0.03 to $118.73 a barrel. The preliminary HSBC China Manufacturing Purchasing Managers Index for April rose to a two-month high of 49.1 from a final reading of 48.3 in March, data showed Monday. The index is a gauge of manufacturing activity, and a significant change would have pointed to a shift in oil consumption in the world's second-largest economy. Although the stabilising of the PMI is bullish, the number remains below 50, indicating a contraction. Key data releases later in the day include the manufacturing, services and composite PMI of the Eurozone, Germany and France. This week, investors will focus on the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee meeting, Bank Of Japan comments on monetary policy accommodation and Spanish and Italian bond auctions, Singapore-based OCBC bank said. "Market participants appear to be sitting on the sidelines, given the recent uncertainty over Europe and flatter trade moves," ANZ Global Markets said in a note. The euro is slightly weaker, weighed down by political uncertainty following French President Nicolas Sarkozy's poor showing in Sunday's first round of France's presidential vote. This despite the International Monetary Fund being able to round up resources worth $430 billion to fight the Eurozone crisis. Friday, officials had said the EU had agreed to postpone a review deadline of the oil embargo on Iran, from May 1 to a later date, allowing for more time to agree to any change to the embargo. "Supply outages and geopolitical concerns have supported prices, but barring a supply shock, upside is limited from here, in our view," Morgan Stanley said in a note. "Inventory trends have become bearish and catalysts for lower prices are emerging." "Risks are skewed to the downside, particularly if outages resolve, Strategic Petroleum Reserves are released, or geopolitical tensions recede," the bank said. Nymex reformulated gasoline blendstock for May--the benchmark gasoline contract--was unchanged at to $3.1427 a gallon, while May heating oil traded at $3.1359, 17 points lower. ICE gasoil for May changed hands at $998.75 a metric ton, down $3.50 from Friday's settlement. -By Eric Yep, Dow Jones Newswires; +65 6415 4063; eric.yep@dowjones.com

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