Oil hovers near 10-month high

Oil held steady around $73 a barrel after briefly marking a new 10-month high on Thursday, as dealers waited for weekly US oil inventory data expected to show little change in crude or fuel stocks. London Brent crude, currently seen as more representative of global oil prices, eased 6 cents to $72.99 a barrel at 0604 GMT, after having traded as high as $73.32, the highest front-month price since late August.
US crude shed 5 cents to $71.36, with activity still thin following Wednesday's Independence Day holiday. Oil prices have risen to a series of 10-month highs over the past week as traders fret over thin US gasoline supplies and fear a rapid drawdown in lofty crude stocks if Opec maintains its supply curbs through the peak summer demand season.
Weekly inventory data due out at 1430 GMT is unlikely to do much to change the medium-term outlook, according to a Reuters poll of analysts that shows an expected 100,000 barrels rise in distillate stocks and a 300,000 barrels increase in gasoline.
Crude stocks were expected to have fallen by 300,000 barrels from a nine-year high, but analysts may be more focused on refinery utilisation rates, which were expected to have risen by 0.9 percentage points from exceptionally low levels.
"We will be keeping an eye on refinery production figures, as any indication of higher run rates would signal a drawdown on crude stocks," said Tobin Gorey, a commodities strategist with Australia's Commonwealth Bank.
Opec officials maintain that current high prices are the fault of insufficient refining capacity, not a lack of crude oil supplies, despite calls by consumer nations to lift supply now to avoid a squeeze ahead of the winter.
"Traders are looking further ahead to the winter fuel season, because these next few months is when refiners will be buying their crude to meet the demand ahead," Gorey said. "There is certainly pressure building up for (Opec) to start considering releasing more crude back into the market." The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries is scheduled to meet in September.
In Nigeria a rebel group responsible for a large number of the attacks on the country's oil industry ended a month-long truce, while an attack on a Shell oil rig in the delta served as a reminder of the supply risks there. "The situation in Nigeria reminds us that there continues to be some important supply off the market," Gorey said.