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Investing.com - West Texas Intermediate oil futures declined on Tuesday, as market participants looked ahead to fresh weekly information on U.S. stockpiles of crude and refined products to gauge the strength of demand in the world’s largest oil consumer.
On the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude oil for June delivery shed 58 cents, or 1.00%, to trade at $57.30 a barrel during European morning hours.
The American Petroleum Institute will release its inventories report later in the day, while Wednesday’s government report could show crude stockpiles rose by 2.4 million barrels in the week ended April 17.
Total U.S. crude oil inventories stood at 483.7 million barrels as of April 10, the most in at least 80 years.
U.S. oil futures have been well-supported in recent sessions due to mounting expectations that U.S. shale oil production has peaked and may start falling in the coming months amid an ongoing collapse in rigs drilling for oil.
According to industry research group Baker Hughes (NYSE:BHI), the number of rigs drilling for oil in the U.S. fell by 26 last week to 734, the lowest since 2010. It was the 19th straight week of declines.
Market players have been paying close attention to the shrinking rig count in recent months for signs it will eventually reduce the glut of crude flowing into the market.
A day earlier, Nymex oil prices tacked on 56 cents, or 0.98%, to end at $57.88 after China's central bank cut banks' reserve requirement ratios in an effort to boost lending and spur economic activity.
China is the world's second largest oil consumer after the U.S. and has been the engine of strengthening demand.
Elsewhere, on the ICE Futures Exchange in London, Brent oil for June delivery dipped 43 cents, or 0.69%, to trade at $63.02 a barrel.
London-traded Brent futures ended Monday's session little changed at $63.45 after Saudi Arabia's oil minister Ali al-Naimi said that the kingdom's production would stay near record peaks of around 10 million barrels per day in April.
Meanwhile, the spread between the Brent and the WTI crude contracts stood at $5.72 a barrel, compared to $5.57 by close of trade on Monday.
Elsewhere, the dollar index, which measures the greenback’s strength against a trade-weighted basket of six major currencies, was up 0.4% to trade at 98.55 early on Tuesday.
A stronger dollar makes U.S. commodities more expensive for importers holding other currencies such as yen or euro.
Concerns over the lack of an agreement on economic reforms for bailout funds between Greece and its creditors remained in focus, fuelling fears that the country could default on its debt be forced out of the euro zone.
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