NYMEX crude higher in early Asia on Middle East tension, API data ahead

Investing.com - Crude oil prices gained in early Asia on Tuesday ahead of U.S. industry data on stockpiles and after escalating tensions in Iraq and Yemen overnight.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange, WTI crude for July delivery rose 0.07% to $60.29 a barrel.

Up ahead the American Petroleum Institute will release details of U.S. crude and refined products stockpiles as of last week. On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Energy reports its own more-closely watched figure.

Overnight, crude futures fell mildly on Monday, retreating from higher levels earlier in the session as modest gains from the turmoil in the Middle East failed to offset a resurgent dollar.

In Iraq, approximately 3,000 Shi'iite milita fighters mobilized at a site near Ramadi, after the Western Iraqi city was taken over by the Islamic State over the weekend.

Meanwhile, U.S.-led warplanes conducted more than 15 airstrikes near the capital of the Anbar Province at the request of Iraqi Security Forces, a coalition spokesman told Reuters. Islamic militants reportedly killed up to 500 people and forced 8,000 others to flee from the city in their biggest victory in more than a year, the Associated Press reported.

In December, crude output in Iraq spiked at a record 4 million barrels per day a month earlier, significantly above a previous high of 3.56 million barrels in 1979. Weeks later, Iraqi oil minister Adel Abdel Mahd announced a deal with a Kurdistan regional agency that helped boost exports from an oil field in northern Iraq from 375,000 bpd over the first three months of the year to 600,000 bpd in April.
Under the deal, a pipeline network exported oil from the Kurdistan region to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.

Elsewhere, Saudi-led airstrikes resumed in Yemen after a five-day cease fire last week which enabled impoverished Yemeni citizens to receive much-needed shipments of food and medicine.

A militia of Shiite-led, Iranian-backed Houthi rebels has been bombarded by Saudi Arabian airstrikes since late-March when a Houthi advance forced Yemen president Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi to flee the country by sea.

Energy traders are sensitive to any geopolitical instability involving Saudi Arabia, the world's largest crude exporter.

On the Intercontinental Exchange (ICE) Brent crude for July fell 0.51 cents or 0.76% to $66.30 a barrel on Monday.