NYMEX May crude settled 30 cents higher at $107.33/barrel Tuesday, holding in a tight range seen for nearly a month, while product prices dipped in consolidative trade, following declines in ICE Brent.
April heating oil settled 1.02 cents lower at $3.2186/gal, and April RBOB settled 1.10 cents lower at $3.4056/gal.
ICE May Brent settled 11 cents lower at $125.54/b after dipping to a session low of $124.91/b.
"We had very tentative trading and saw a little movement ahead of tomorrow's inventory report," Matt Smith, commodity analyst at Summit Energy, said in a reference to the weekly oil data report by the Energy Information Administration.
Smith noted that murmurs of a release from the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve did little to rattle the market.
Charles McConnell, the Department of Energy's acting assistant secretary for fossil energy, told the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development that, "the administration has consistently talked about no options being off the table, in terms of where we are with the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, or in terms of any supply interuptions that have or may occur."
McConnell's comment comes a few weeks after news reports that President Barack Obama and British Prime Minister David Cameron discussed a possible SPR release during a meeting in Washington on March 14.
"It was likely leaked weeks ago to gauge market reaction, so today there was limited impact," Smith said of the Obama-Cameron news reports. The White House has denied a least one report that a deal on the release of SPR crude had been reached.
LACKLUSTER ECONOMIC DATA
Separately, US economic data released Tuesday was seen as lackluster.
"The housing data and consumer confidence were pretty much in line with expectations," Smith said.
The S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index Tuesday fell for a fifth month in a row in January -- falling 0.8% from December and down some 34% from a 2006 peak. Meanwhile, US consumer confidence slipped to 70.2 in March from an upwardly revised 71.63 reading the month prior, according to the Conference Board.
Harry Tchilinguirian, head of commodity markets strategy at BNP Paribas, said more price consolidation and lower volatility continued to be the principal themes for ICE Brent and NYMEX crude as the market lacked directional conviction.
"In recent price action, each time the market has moved up to test the April 2011 high resistance [around $108/b], this has been done on lower volumes which is a sign of exhaustion, and a signal for a price pull back," Tchilinguirian said. "Lower flows along the Forties oil pipeline following a gas leak at the Total Elgin platform could potentially lead to the deferral of additional cargoes. This could imply a stronger Brent curve structure."
However, the North Sea crude market was little affected by that gas leak at the Elgin-Franklin fields on the UK Continental Shelf, which resulted in the closure of both fields and of the nearby Shearwater field, traders said.
Forties -- the largest crude oil stream in the North Sea that receives condensates from Elgin-Franklin -- was assessed 8.5 cents/b lower at a premium to Dated Brent of 9 cents/b. It was up just 5 cents/b from Friday before the incident happened.
