NYMEX-US crude up as cold spell seen draining oil inventory

SEOUL, Feb 5 (Reuters) - U.S. crude oil futures gained in early Asian trade on Wednesday on the expectation that U.S. oil storage at a key delivery point would show a large drop with a persistent cold snap driving demand for heating fuels in the world's largest economy.

FUNDAMENTALS

* U.S. crude oil futures CLc1 rose 43 cents up at $97.62 a barrel as of 0016 GMT after it ended 76 cents higher at $97.19 a barrel on Tuesday.

* Brent oil LCOc1 settled 26 cents lower at $105.78, the lowest settlement price since Nov. 8, hit by worries over emerging markets where stocks .MSCIEF pared losses but were still down sharply for a second day on Tuesday.

* Traders expected oil inventory data to show that supplies were beginning to drain in earnest from Cushing, Oklahoma, after the startup of TransCanada's TRP.TO Keystone south pipeline as they awaited inventory data from the U.S. Energy Information Administration to be released later on Wednesday.

* U.S. commercial crude oil and gasoline stockpiles were forecast to have risen last week, while distillates were seen drawing down, an expanded Reuters poll of analysts showed on Tuesday. Href="NewsSearch">EIA/S

* Data from industry group the American Petroleum Institute showed on Tuesday that U.S. crude stocks rose last week as refineries cut output, while crude stocks at Cushing declined by 1.6 million barrels, and distillates fell by 1.5 million barrels. Href="NewsSearch">API/S

* On the supply side, North Sea crude output at Britain's 200,000 barrel-per-day Buzzard oilfield has restarted and will return to normal levels in coming days, after an outage earlier on Monday, its operator Nexen said on Tuesday. News Search ID:nL9N0GY00A

* Tankers have started loading crude from Libya's 340,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) El Sharara oilfield again after bad weather closed ports in the west of the country, and output should return to normal on Tuesday, a National Oil Corporation spokesman said. News Search ID:nL5N0L913K

MARKETS NEWS

* Early Wednesday, MSCI's broadest index of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan .MIAPJ0000PUS inched up 0.13 percent, while the Australian market added 0.2 percent .AXJO .

* On Wall Street, the Dow .DJI ended up 0.47 percent, while the S&P 500 .SPX added 0.76 percent and the Nasdaq

.IXIC 0.86 percent. The bounce helped pull MSCI's world index

.MIWD00000PUS from its lowest level since October.

* The euro eased a touch to $1.3510 EUR= , still dogged by speculation that the threat of deflation might nudge the European Central Bank into easing policy at its meeting on Thursday.

* The pullback in safe havens saw U.S. 10-year Treasury yields shoved up 5 basis points to 2.63 percent US10YT=RR . Gold =XAU gave back some ground to $1,253.34 an ounce.

Href="NewsSearch">MKTS/GLOB

DATA/EVENTS

* The following data is expected on Wednesday: (Time in GMT)

0848 France Markit Services PMI FRPMIS=ECI

0853 Germany Markit Services PMI DEPMIS=ECI

0858 Euro zone Markit Services PMI EUPMIS=ECI

1000 Euro zone Retail sales EURSLY=ECI

1315 U.S. ADP national employment USADP=ECI

1500 U.S. ISM Non-manufacturing PMI USNPMI=ECI

(Reporting by Meeyoung Cho; Editing by Michael Perry)

((meeyoung.cho@thomsonreuters.com)(+82 2 3704 5653)(Reuters Messaging: meeyoung.cho.reuters.com@reuters.net))

 
((CRUDE OIL TRADES  
    Asia... ACRU/T       Europe... CRU/T     Americas... CRU/TU   
      
                       CRUDE OIL MARKET NEWS  
    Crude oil tenders in Asia........................ CRU/TENDA   
    Crude oil supply outages in Asia............ CRU/OUT-ASIA-O   
    Refinery outages in Asia.................... REF/OUT-ASIA-O   
    Global arbitrage news and flows................. O/CRUDEARB   
    W.African crude imports to Asia, monthly........ O/WAFRICA1   
      
                    REFINERY MAINTENANCE DIARIES  
    Asia... REF/A      Middle East... REF/ME    Europe... REF/E   
      
                       NATIONAL CRUDE IMPORT DATA  
    Japan..............     China.............. O/CHINA1   
    India.............. O/INDIA2    S.Korea............ O/KOREA1   
    Indonesia....... O/INDO1-CRU      
      
                       CRUDE OIL INVENTORY DATA  
    Japan... O/JAPAN1      US... EIA/S      Europe... O/EUROIL1   
      
                    CRUDE OIL PRODUCTION/OILFIELD NEWS  
    OPEC output survey... OPEC/O    New Asian fields... ASIA/NEW   
    New Africa fields... AFR/NEW    New Europe fields.. NSEA/NEW   
    New Americas fields.. AM/NEW    New projects..... ENERGY/NEW   
      
                       CRUDE OIL MARKET REPORTS  
    Middle East........... CRU/M    Asia-Pacific........ CRU/AP   
    West Africa......... CRU/WAF    North Sea............ CRU/E   
    Asia outlook....... ASIA/CRU    Europe outlook..... EUR/CRU   
    Global futures report... O/R    Technicals report...... O/I   
      
                            PRICES  
    For all Official Selling Prices...................... OSP/O   
    For a POLL on oil prices............................ O/POLL   
    NYMEX and ICE oil futures...........................    
    TOCOM crude oil futures.............................    
    Dubai, Oman swaps and spread...............    
    Middle East physical crude diffs...............    
    Australia physical crude, Tapis swaps..........    
    Asia-Pacific physical crude....................    
    All Asian crude oil differentials................    
    All Asian crude oil outright prices..................  ))

Keywords: MARKETS ASIA NYMEX/