By Eric Yep Crude-oil futures rose in Asian trading hours Wednesday on strong Chinese trade data including record oil-import volumes and market expectations that U.S. supply bottlenecks will start to ease. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in March traded at $100.59 a barrel at 0618 GMT, up $0.65 in the Globex electronic session. March Brent crude on London's ICE Futures exchange rose $0.17 to $108.85 a barrel. U.S. crude-oil supplies rose by 2.1 million barrels last week, but inventories at the oil-delivery hub of Cushing, Okla. fell by 2.5 million barrels, data from the American Petroleum Institute, an industry group, showed late Tuesday. The API also said gasoline stockpiles fell by 479,000 barrels, while distillate stocks dropped by 1.5 million barrels as heating oil demand remained strong due to cold weather. The closely watched survey from the Energy Information Administration is due at 10:30 a.m. EDT Wednesday. Analysts polled by The Wall Street Journal expect a 2.5 million-barrel increase in total U.S. oil inventories for the week ended Feb. 7. In Asia, Chinese trade data for January was unexpectedly strong with imports of industrial commodities touching record highs, alleviating some concerns about demand in the world's second-largest oil consumer. China's crude imports rose to an all-time high of 28.16 million metric tons in January, equivalent to 6.66 million barrels a day, up 12% from a year earlier, official data showed. Overall exports rose 10.6% compared with January last year. The strong growth in China's trade is positive for markets even if January's data was skewed by the Lunar New Year holiday, BofA Merrill Lynch said in a note, adding that the numbers may point to stable economic growth in the first quarter. However, China's crude imports may fall seasonally in February, Barclays analyst Sijin Cheng said. She said the country's oil refiners are operating at relatively lower run rates and diesel demand was weak during the holiday season. Meanwhile, the EIA lowered its forecasts for U.S. oil-production growth in 2014 and 2015 in its short-term energy outlook, and raised its expectations for the country's consumption of oil products. Nymex reformulated gasoline blendstock for March--the benchmark gasoline contract--rose 79 points to $2.7605 a gallon, while March heating oil traded at $3.0324, 43 points higher. ICE gasoil for February changed hands at $922.25 a metric ton, up $0.75 from Tuesday's settlement.

Source