Crude-oil futures held steady in Asian trading Tuesday ahead of key economic events in the U.S. and China later this week.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in July traded at $97.72 a barrel at 0621 GMT, down $0.05 in the Globex electronic session. August Brent crude on London's ICE Futures exchange rose $0.05 to $105.52 a barrel.
Investors remained cautious while waiting to see if the U.S. Federal Open Market Committee signals a tapering of its bond-buying program at the end of its meeting Wednesday. Less quantitative easing could weigh on commodity prices, including oil.
"Rising oil inventories and softer global oil demand forecasts appear to be weighing on sentiment," said analysts at ANZ. They expect more uncertainty ahead this week, pointing to the Fed meeting, the conclusion of the G8 meeting later Tuesday, and preliminary Chinese manufacturing data due Thursday.
Norwegian oil producer Statoil ASA said Monday production at the Oseberg field in the North Sea had been shut following an alarm. It remains unclear when production will resume at Oseberg, which contributes to the BFOE basket of crudes and was scheduled to export 135,000 barrels a day in July.
Nymex reformulated gasoline blendstock for July--the benchmark gasoline contract--rose 66 points to $2.8627 a gallon, while July heating oil traded at $2.9474, 29 points lower.
ICE gasoil for July changed hands at $889.50 a metric ton, down $4.50 from Monday's settlement.
Write to Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen at jacob.pedersen@dowjones.com
