Investing.com - Crude prices edged lower in early action on Thursday, as investors looked ahead to fresh weekly data on U.S. commercial crude inventories to gauge the strength of demand in the world’s largest oil consumer and how fast output levels will continue to rise.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration will release its official weekly oil supplies report for the week ended May 25 at 11:00AM ET (1500GMT), amid forecasts for an oil-stock gain of 2.2 million barrels.
The report comes out one day later than usual because of the federal Memorial Day holiday on Monday.
After markets closed Wednesday, the American Petroleum Institute said that U.S. oil inventories rose by 1 million barrels last week.
The API data also showed a fall of 1.7 million barrels in gasoline stockpiles, while inventories of distillates climbed by 1.5 million barrels.
There are often sharp divergences between the API estimates and the official figures from EIA.
U.S. West Texas Intermediate WTI crude was down 24 cents, or around 0.4%, at $67.97 a barrel at 3:20AM ET (0720GMT), after settling up $1.48, or 2.2%, on Wednesday.
Brent crude futures were down 49 cents, or 0.5%, at $77.33 a barrel, after settling the last session up $2.23, or 2.8%.
Oil rallied Wednesday, with U.S. prices notching their first gain in six sessions on the back of reports that OPEC will keep crude production curbs in place until at least the end of the year.
Prices in recent sessions had declined on concerns that the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and non-OPEC members led by Russia would decide to lift output to help make up for any loss production from Venezuela and Iran.
OPEC is scheduled to hold its next meeting in Vienna on June 22.
In other energy trading, natural gas futures were a shade higher at $2.897 per million British thermal units, as traders looked ahead to weekly storage data due later in the global day amid expectations for an increase of 102 billion cubic feet.