By Eric Yep Crude-oil futures were choppy in Asian trading hours Monday as investors considered oil demand prospects in the post- winter refinery maintenance season and supply disruptions in the Middle East and North Africa. On the New York Mercantile Exchange light, sweet crude futures for delivery in March traded at $100.55 a barrel at 0418 GMT--up $0.25 in the Globex electronic session. April Brent crude on London's ICE Futures exchange fell $0.14 to $ 108.94 a barrel. Nymex crude ended 42 cents higher last week--holding onto gains above the $100 a barrel mark and ending higher for five consecutive weeks. Brent crude has posted gains for the past two weeks. "Over the coming weeks, however, we expect the upward momentum in WTI to slow down if it crosses the $101 a barrel level again--partly from the weight of softening U.S. Gulf Coast balances," Barclays analyst Miswin Mahesh wrote in a note. Refinery maintenance on the U.S. Gulf Coast is expected to peak at the start of March, he said, and runs have already started to slow to 88% of capacity while a larger-than-usual fleet of U.S. bound oil tankers is expected to increase supplies and put pressure on U.S. oil markets. Nymex crude prices got a boost earlier this year when the opening of the southern leg of the Keystone XL oil pipeline eased a glut at the delivery hub of Cushing, Okla. The extreme cold weather and storms in the U.S. are also keeping demand for oil products high at a time when Atlantic basin stocks of distillates are running below average. Brent crude is supported by supply issues ranging from North Sea oilfield maintenance to production issues in Angola and Libya. "A potential support for Brent this week is news of further supply disruptions in Libya. The National Oil Corp. reported a reduction in production of 70,000 barrels a day last week due to the protest-affected shutdown of an oil pipeline," ANZ said in a note on Monday. Meanwhile, bets by money managers--including hedge funds and pension funds--on rising oil prices rose to their highest since Aug. 27 in the week ended Feb. 11, CFTC data showed. Nymex reformulated gasoline blendstock for March--the benchmark gasoline contract--fell 37 points to $2.8016 a gallon while March heating oil traded at $3.0810--28 points higher. ICE gasoil for March changed hands at $924.50 a metric ton--up $4.25 from Friday's settlement.

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