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 A Reuters survey forecast figures from the American Petroleum
Institute on Tuesday, and the U.S. Department of Energy's Energy
Information Administration, due to be published on Wednesday, would
show U.S. crude stocks increased by 4 million barrels to a record
high last week.
Brent futures for April were up 10 cents at $59.00 a barrel by 1100
GMT, while U.S. crude was down 15 cents at $49.30.
"The fundamental backdrop is still bearish," said Carsten Fritsch,
senior oil and commodities analyst at Commerzbank in Frankfurt,
adding that there was a "huge over-supply in the market".
"We expect another strong increase in U.S. crude inventories to be
reported," he said.
Huge increases in domestic oil production have left the U.S. oil
market with a fuel glut, one exacerbated by a refinery strike, that
has squeezed demand for crude oil.
The United States is in its fourth week of its largest refinery
strike for 35 years, affecting 12 refineries accounting for a fifth
of national production capacity. Talks to end the strike are not
expected to resume this week.
"Spreads for crude oil are becoming severely altered by the refinery
strikes," analysts at Singapore brokerage Phillip Futures said in a
note to clients, saying that the strike had reduced demand for U.S.
crude and helped widen its discount below Brent, the North Sea
benchmark.
The spread between Brent and U.S. crude stood at $9.69 a barrel at
1100 GMT, after hitting $10.27 on Monday, its widest since March
2014.
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A report in the Financial Times on Monday quoted Nigeria's oil
minister as saying the country would call an OPEC extraordinary
meeting if prices dropped further, offering some support to oil
prices.
But a delegate to the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting
Countries told Reuters on Tuesday that the producer group had no
plans to meet before June.
Analysts said an emergency OPEC meeting was not expected.
"By making statements with no back-up, countries like Nigeria and
Venezuela are hurting oil prices (and their budgets) as they just
continue to show that they have no power within OPEC," said
independent Swiss energy consultant Olivier Jakob, the managing
director of Petromatrix GmbH.
(Additional reporting by Jane Xie in Singapore; Editing by
Christopher Johnson and Keith Weir)
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