Investing.com - Oil prices traded slightly higher on Tuesday ahead of incoming information on the state of U.S. crude stockpiles.
New York-traded West Texas Intermediate crude futures gained 13 cents, or 0.2%, at $63.53 a barrel by 7:53 AM ET (11:53 GMT), in the absence of any major news on supply.
Meanwhile, Brent crude futures, the benchmark for oil prices outside the U.S., edged forward 9 cents, or 0.1%, to $71.27.
The American Petroleum Institute will release its weekly data on U.S. crude inventories at 4:30 PM ET (20:30 GMT) Tuesday in what may be a third straight weekly build.
The API data arrives a day ahead of official government figures and expectations for an increase of 2.29 million barrels.
A degree of caution has entered the market due to worries that Russia is reluctant to extend the current production cut agreement with OPEC beyond June. TASS news agency cited Russian Finance Minister Anton Siluanov as saying that Moscow and the cartel may decide to boost production in order to recover market share from the U.S. -
Russia's compliance with that deal has in any case been less enthusiastic than Saudi Arabia's. According to data compiled by Bloomberg, Russia had cut barely half what it promised to cut at the end of last year by March, By contrast, Saudi Arabia's March output was over 800,000 barrels a day lower than in December, well beyond the 322,000 cut b/d it had pledged.
According to last week’s EIA report, U.S. crude production held at a record 12.2 million barrels per day, more than both Russia and Saudi Arabia.
In other energy trading, gasoline futures fell 0.4% to $2.0030 a gallon by 7:55 AM ET (11:55 GMT), while heating oil advanced 0.2% to $2.0659 a gallon.
Lastly, natural gas futures were unchanged at $2.590 per million British thermal unit.