Crude steady; US inventories seen up again

TOKYO: US crude futures held steady on Tuesday as a drop in stockpiles at a key U.S. delivery point offset near record high production in Saudi Arabia and an expected build in U.S. oil inventories.

FUNDAMENTALS

* NYMEX crude for May delivery, which expires later in the day, was down 4 cents at $56.34 a barrel by 0000 GMT, after settling up 64 cents at $56.38 on Monday.

* Crude prices have risen around 18 percent since the start of April, on speculation about falling U.S. output after the domestic oil rig count hit 2010 lows.

* London Brent crude for June delivery was up 1 cent at $63.46, after settling flat on Monday.

* Oil services firm Genscape reported a drop of more than 900,000 barrels at the Cushing, Oklahoma delivery point for U.S. crude between Tuesday and Friday last week, market sources who saw the data said. For the week to Friday, Genscape reported a build of about 350,000 barrels, they said.

* Speculation has been rife that rapidly climbing U.S. crude supplies would soon cause storage tanks in Cushing to top, leaving little or no room for more barrels.

* Saudi oil minister Ali al-Naimi told Reuters in Seoul on Monday that the No. 1 crude exporter expected to produce at near record highs of around 10 million bpd in April.

* U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska) said on Monday she will introduce legislation this year to allow U.S. crude exports, saying the Obama administration should not dare lift sanctions on Iran before scrapping the U.S. crude export ban.

* U.S. commercial crude oil inventories are likely to have increased by 2.4 million barrels last week, marking a rise for the 15th consecutive week, a preliminary Reuters survey showed on Monday.

* Gasoline stocks were expected to have declined 700,000 barrels, while distillate stocks were seen up 900,000 barrels.

MARKETS NEWS

* Wall Street ended sharply higher on Monday after China moved to stimulate its slowing.

* The dollar rose broadly on Monday, with the euro sliding more than half a percent against the U.S currency, on growing concern that Greece may default on debts. - Reuters