(RTTNews) - The price of crude oil was ticking lower Wednesday morning as traders await cues from the official inventories data, due out later during the session from the EIA.
The IEA, in its monthly Oil Market Report released today, held its 2012 oil demand growth forecast steady at 0.8 mbd to 89.90 mbd.
Light Sweet Crude Oil (WTI) futures for April delivery, eased $0.14 to $106.57 a barrel. Yesterday, oil ended higher on some positive retail sales data from the U.S., although trimmed gains after release of the Federal Reserve statement following its policy meeting.
Tuesday after the market hours, the API said U.S. crude oil inventories increased by 2.80 million barrels, while gasoline stocks fell 2.1 million barrels in the weekended March 09.
This morning, the U.S. dollar was hovering near a monthly high versus the euro and the Swiss franc, while ticking higher against sterling and extending its 11-month high versus the yen
In economic news, industrial production in the 17-nation currency bloc rose 0.2 percent month-on-month in January, Eurostat said. The increase came in weaker than the expected 0.5 percent rise, but it rebounded from December's 1.1 percent fall. Separately, the agency said that consumer prices rose by 0.5 percent from January, and were up 2.7 percent from February 2011. The annual rate of inflation was in line with its preliminary estimate, while the figure for January was revised up to 2.7 percent from 2.6 percent
Elsewhere, U.K. jobless claims increased more than expected in February, the Office for National Statistics said. The number of people claiming Job-seeker's Allowance rose by 7,200 from a month ago to 1.61 million in February. Economists had expected only an increase of 5,000. At the same time, the claimant count rate remained unchanged at 5 percent, in line with forecast.
Today during trading hours, the EIA will come out with its U.S. crude oil inventories report for the weekended march 09. Analysts expect crude oil inventories to jump 1.70 million barrels, while gasoline stocks are seen losing 1.0 million barrels last week.
