By Mari Iwata Crude-oil futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange rose sharply in Asia Wednesday, following a bigger-than-expected drop in U.S. crude stockpiles announced by the American Petroleum Institute overnight. China's trade data for June was weaker than expected but oil supply concerns owing to unrest in Egypt continued to support prices. Traders are awaiting the U.S. Federal Reserve's views on the U.S. economy and the Department of Energy's weekly oil data later Wednesday for cues. Nymex light, sweet crude futures for delivery in August traded at $104.47 a barrel at 0603 GMT, up $0.94 in the Globex electronic session. ICE Brent was mostly flat in Asia, with August Brent crude on London's ICE Futures exchange rising just $0.06 to $107.87 a barrel. Nymex crude rose sharply in early Asian hours after API data late Tuesday showed that crude oil stocks dropped by 9 million barrels, much more than an expected fall of 3 million barrels. Front-month August Nymex crude jumped more than 1.2% to $104.79 a barrel, the highest level since April 2012. Meanwhile, China said its exports in June fell 3.1% on year after a 1% rise in May, which was considerably worse than expectations for a rise of just more than 3%. Nevertheless, Nymex crude pared only a small part of the day's gains. The spread between Nymex and Brent narrowed to about $3.50/bbl compared with $26/bbl in November. Stronger crude-oil demand in the U.S. is behind the thinner spread amid a recovery in the U.S. economy, said Tomomichi Akuta, analyst of Mitsubishi UFJ Research & Consulting. Nymex reformulated gasoline blendstock for August--the benchmark gasoline contract--rose 242 points to $2.9502 a gallon, while August heating oil traded at $2.9896, 39 points higher. ICE gasoil for July changed hands at $912.00 a metric ton, up $2.75 from Tuesday's settlement.

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