Investing.com - Crude prices were a bit lower in early dealings on Wednesday, amid speculation weekly supply data due later in the day will show a sizable gain in U.S. gasoline and fuel supplies.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration will release its official weekly oil supplies report for the week ended Dec. 1 at 10:30AM ET (1530GMT).
After markets closed Tuesday, the American Petroleum Institute said that U.S. oil inventories dropped by nearly 5.5 million barrels last week. That compared with analysts' expectations for a decline of around 3.4 million barrels.
However, the API report also showed a whopping gain of around 9.2 million barrels in gasoline stocks, while distillate stocks, which include motor diesel and heating oil, increased by about 4.3 million barrels.
There are often sharp divergences between the API estimates and the official figures from EIA.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures lost 10 cents, or about 0.2%, to $57.52 a barrel by 3:35AM ET (0835GMT), after inching up 0.3% a day earlier.
Meanwhile, Brent crude futures, the benchmark for oil prices outside the U.S., were at $62.91 a barrel, up 6 cents, or 0.1%, from their last close. The contract enjoyed a gain of 0.6% in the prior session.
Oil prices notched a slight gain in a range-bound session Tuesday, supported by OPEC’s agreement to extend production cuts through next year.
The producer group, along with some non-OPEC members led by Russia, agreed last week to extend current oil output cuts for a further nine months until the end of 2018. The deal to cut oil output by 1.8 million barrels a day (bpd) was adopted last winter by OPEC, Russia and nine other global producers. The agreement was due to end in March 2018, having already been extended once.
The OPEC-led production cuts have been one of the key catalyst supporting the recent rally in oil prices amid expectations that rebalancing in crude markets are well underway.
However, fears that rising U.S. output would dampen OPEC’s efforts to rid the market of excess supplies are prevented prices from rising much further, according to market participants.
Domestic U.S. output has rebounded by almost 15% since the most recent low in mid-2016, and increasing drilling activity for new production means output is expected to grow further, as producers are attracted by climbing prices.
In other energy trading, gasoline futures tacked on 0.8 cents, or 0.5%, to $1.710 a gallon, while heating oil lost 0.4 cents to $1.910 a gallon.
Natural gas futures jumped 2.2 cents, or 0.8%, to $2.936 per million British thermal units.