Investing.com - Crude prices rebounded slightly in early Asia on Tuesday with figures on U.S. inventories later int he day expected to set the market tone.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange crude futures for May delivery rose 0.12% to $50.30 a barrel, while on London's Intercontinental Exchange, Brent edged up 0.06% to $53.12 barrel.
The American Petroleum Institute (API) will release its estimates of crude stocks at the end of last week late on Tuesday. The figures will be followed by official data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Wednesday. Analysts expect crude inventories dropped by 530,000 barrels at the end of last week, with distillates down by 1.12 million barrels and gasoline supplies showing a 1.462 million barrels decline.
Overnight, crude settled lower on Monday, as investors fret over rising U.S. shale production while a rebound in Libyan oil output weighed on sentiment.
Crude prices ended the first quarter nearly 6% down and showed little sign of a recovery, as oil prices slipped on Monday, amid fears that a ramp up in U.S. oil production could weigh on OPEC’s efforts to drain the glut in supply.
Oilfield services firm Barker Hughes reported its weekly U.S. rig count Friday, rose by 10 to 662, it was the eleventh straight weekly increase, which fuelled concerns that the rise in U.S. production would likely remain robust.
Meanwhile, the reopening of Libya’s biggest oil field – the Sharara – on Sunday, heaped further pressure on oil prices. Over the past week, Armed factions had blocked output at Libyan oil fields, reducing output by 252,000 barrels per day (bpd), a source at the National Oil Corporation (NOC) said last week.
Investors remained hopeful that OPEC and non-OPEC members would extend the current deal to cut production beyond June, after comments from several ministers from oil producing nations supported the idea of an extension.
In November last year, OPEC and other producers, including Russia agreed to cut output by about 1.8 million barrels per day (bpd) but non-OPEC members' compliance with the deal has lagged behind that of their OPEC counterparts.
Eleven non-OPEC oil producers that joined a global deal to reduce output to boost prices delivered only 64% of promised cuts in February, an industry source said March 20, which was far below the roughly 90% compliance with the deal from OPEC members.