By William L. Watts and Michael Kitchen, MarketWatch
FRANKFURT (MarketWatch) — Benchmark U.S. crude-oil futures were little changed Tuesday after the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, left its forecast for global demand growth unchanged and traders awaited U.S. inventory data.
Crude oil for April delivery CLJ3 +1.14% rose 9 cents, or 0.1%, to $92.15 a barrel.
Oil saw an 11-cent advance during Monday’s regular New York Mercantile Exchange session. Read: Oil tops $92 after late-session turn higher
London-traded Brent crude for April delivery UK:LCOJ3 +0.60% lost 28 cents, or 0.2%, to $109.94 a barrel, further narrowing its spread with Nymex crude.
In its monthly report, OPEC said it expected world oil demand to grow by 800,000 barrels a day in 2013, unchanged from its previous forecast. But OPEC said growth in non-OPEC oil supply of around 1 million barrels a day would cut into the organization’s market share. See: OPEC: Non-OPEC supply cutting into market share.
A rising dollar also weighed on crude prices, with the ICE dollar index DXY -0.24% advancing to 82.702, up from 82.601 late Monday in North America. Gains for the U.S. unit tend to depress crude prices, which are denominated in dollars, as it makes the commodity more expensive to holders of other currencies.
The American Petroleum Institute is scheduled to release its weekly report on U.S. crude inventories at 4:30 p.m. Eastern time.
Analysts at Citi Futures said that the API data — along with the more definitive Energy Information Administration report slated for Wednesday — could weigh on prices.
“Fundamentally ... we still don’t see any particular fresh support for prices. In fact, we think the weekly inventory data will show a further 2-million to 3-million-barrel build in U.S. stocks as the refinery operating rate remains relatively low,” Citi Futures said late Monday.
As with crude futures, moves for other energy prices were modest Tuesday. April gasoline RBJ3 +0.33% held steady at $3.15 a gallon, April heating oil HOJ3 +0.93% was flat at $2.97 a gallon, and April natural gas NGJ13 +0.41% added a cent, or 0.1%, to $3.66 per million British thermal units.
William L. Watts is MarketWatch's European bureau chief, based in Frankfurt. Follow him on Twitter @wlwatts.
Michael Kitchen is Asia editor for MarketWatch and is based in Los Angeles. You can follow him on Twitter at @KitchenNews.
