Crude-oil futures fell slightly in Asian trading Wednesday, amid expectations of a rise on U.S. inventories and no clear catalysts ahead of Chinese economic data and U.S. company earnings in the coming days.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in February traded at $93.01 a barrel at 0632 GMT, down $0.14 in the Globex electronic session. February Brent crude on London's ICE Futures exchange fell $0.08 to $111.86 a barrel.
Crude oil prices have traded within a tight range since reaching a four-month high last week on expectations that a deal to avoid the U.S. fiscal cliff would support demand for the commodity in the world's biggest consumer.
Prices fell Wednesday despite some optimism in regional stock markets, as the U.S. earnings season kicked off overnight with aluminum company Alcoa announcing it swung to a profit in the fourth quarter.
Investors await more companies to post their results for the final quarter of 2012 as well as Chinese trade data later this week for signs of growth in the world's two biggest economies.
U.S. crude oil inventories are expected to have risen by 2.2 million barrels in the week ended Friday, according to analysts surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires. A rise would suggest demand for the commodity is falling in the U.S. The weekly oil inventory data from the Energy Information Administration are due at 1530 GMT Wednesday.
Deutsche Bank Tuesday cut its forecast for Nymex crude by 10% to $90 a barrels for the first quarter of 2013, citing increasing supply from the U.S. and lower expectations for global growth.
"Given expectations for robust U.S. oil supply growth, the global oil balance implies that if OPEC doesn't curb production significantly, implied inventory builds in first-half 2013 could be sizable," said Deutsche Bank analyst Michael Lewis.
The Brent forward curve is set to flatten over the near term as North Sea crude loadings normalize after a slew of outages, Commerzbank said.
"The normalization of North Sea production appears to be continuing, [suggesting] that the Brent forward curve is likely to flatten over the next few weeks," said analysts at Commerzbank in a note.
Loadings of major North Sea crude-oil grades Brent, Forties, Oseberg and Ekofisk are set to rise to 878,500 barrels a day in February from 832,000 barrels a day this month, according to Dow Jones Newswires' data based on loading programs.
Nymex reformulated gasoline blendstock for February--the benchmark gasoline contract--fell 199 points to $2.7745 a gallon, while February heating oil traded at $3.0589, 4 points higher.
ICE gasoil for January changed hands at $946.25 a metric ton, up $1.00 from Tuesday's settlement.
Write to Jacob Gronholt-Pedersen at jacob.pedersen@dowjones.com
