Investing.com - Oil prices pared gains on Tuesday, coming off the highest levels of the session as investors looked ahead to weekly data from the U.S. on stockpiles of crude and refined products.
The U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude May contract rose 15 cents, or around 0.3%, to $49.05 a barrel by 10:25AM ET (14:25GMT), pulling back from a session high of $49.48. It fell 40 cents in the prior session.
Elsewhere, Brent oil for May delivery on the ICE Futures Exchange in London tacked on 13 cents to $51.75 a barrel. The global benchmark dipped 14 cents on Monday.
Industry group the American Petroleum Institute is due to release its weekly report at 4:30PM ET (20:30GMT) later on Tuesday. Official data from the Energy Information Administration will be released Wednesday, amid forecasts for an oil-stock rise of 2.6 million barrels.
Oil has fallen sharply this month amid concern that the ongoing rebound in U.S. shale production could derail efforts by other major producers to rebalance global oil supply and demand.
Futures were up almost 1% earlier amid speculation that OPEC could extend its production-cut deal beyond June if global crude inventories failed to drop to a targeted level.
OPEC members increasingly favor extending the output curb beyond June to balance the market, sources within the group said, although they added that this would require non-OPEC members such as Russia to also step up their efforts.
OPEC agreed in November last year to curb its output by about 1.2 million barrels per day between January and June. Russia and 10 other non-OPEC producers have agreed to jointly cut by an additional 600,000 barrels per day.
In total, they agreed to reduce output by 1.8 million barrels per day to 32.5 million for the first six months of the year, but so far the move has had little impact on inventory levels.
OPEC's latest monthly report showed global oil stocks in January rose to 278 million barrels above the five-year average.
Kuwait is scheduled to host a ministerial meeting on March 26 comprising both OPEC and non-OPEC members to review compliance with the output agreement and to discuss whether cuts would be extended beyond June.
Elsewhere on Nymex, gasoline futures for April added 1.1 cents, or 0.7%, to $1.620 a gallon, while April heating oil rose 0.6 cents to $1.520 a gallon.
Natural gas futures for April delivery jumped 4.7 cents to $3.088 per million British thermal units, as forecasts showing cooler weather on the way boosted the heating fuel.