By Eric Yep Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES SINGAPORE (Dow Jones)--Crude oil is trading higher in Asia but remains in tight ranges ahead of U.S. non-farm payroll data due later Friday. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in March traded at $96.45 a barrel at 0723 GMT, up $0.09 in the Globex electronic session. March Brent crude on London's ICE Futures exchange rose $0.25 to $112.32 a barrel. Nymex crude-oil futures closed at a six-week low Thursday, falling for a fifth consecutive day due to weak oil demand and rising supplies. Most market cues are bearish, but crude may tick upward because some market participants find current prices attractive, a trader said. The Brent/Nymex spread widened further to $15.71 a barrel Thursday, its widest since early November, mainly due to lower U.S. oil demand data, a trader said. "While [oil] demand has been dismal in Europe as the sovereign debt crisis worsened, demand for oil in the U.S. has also surprised to the downside," BofA Merrill Lynch Research said in a note. "The global oil demand decline has been very apparent in OECD nations, but now emerging economies are also starting to see a marked deceleration in their consumption patterns." The international confrontation with Iran over its nuclear program hasn't deteriorated significantly enough to boost oil prices yet. While some U.S. lawmakers introduced a bill to tighten sanctions on companies that do business with Iran, Kyodo News reported that Japanese companies may receive waivers if the nation cuts its imports from Iran. The euro is slightly lower as investors wait for Greece's debt-restructuring talks to play out. The finance ministers of Germany, Finland, the Netherlands and Luxembourg will meet Friday to discuss the euro-zone debt crisis, a spokesman for Germany's Ministry of Finance said Thursday. Oil market participants are focused on U.S. jobs data. The U.S. unemployment rate remained unchanged in January from the previous month at 8.5%, nonfarm payrolls showed an increase of 125,000 jobs, according to the median forecasts of economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires. Any indication of economic growth is likely to boost oil prices. Nymex reformulated gasoline blendstock for March--the benchmark gasoline contract--rose 47 points to $2.8736 a gallon, while March heating oil traded at $3.0536, 7 points higher. ICE gasoil for February changed hands at $952.75 a metric ton, up $5.00 from Thursday's settlement. -By Eric Yep, Dow Jones Newswires; +65 6415 4063; eric.yep@dowjones.com

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