Oil prices pared gains on Sept. 14 after falling by as much as 3% in the previous session amid concerns that the rebalancing in the global oil market will take longer than originally envisaged.
Prices were supported earlier in the session by data from the American Petroleum Institute which showed a crude build of 1.4 million barrels (MMbbl) for the week ended Sept. 9, smaller than the 3.8 MMbbl rise expected by analysts.
The U.S. government's Energy Information Administration (EIA) will issue official inventory data later on Sept. 14.
Brent crude futures were trading at $47.07/bbl at 7:02 a.m. CT (12:02 GMT), down 3 cents from their last settlement. U.S. West Texas Intermediate futures were down 2 cents at $44.88/bbl.
"Long suffering oil bulls will now turn nervously to the U.S. EIA's commercial crude inventory numbers," OANDA senior market analyst Jeffrey Halley said.
"It was an unexpected undershoot in these numbers last week that set off the rally in crude last week," Halley said.
Crude prices tumbled on Sept. 13 after the International Energy Agency (IEA) said slowing oil demand growth amid growing inventories and supplies could signal that the market will be oversupplied at least through the first half of 2017.
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Commerzbank said in a note that the delay in rebalancing is largely due to a rise in production from members of OPEC and that the market would be balanced already if OPEC had maintained its production at May's levels.
"Rather than talking about capping oil production as it was planning to do at the end of September, OPEC would be better advised to think about reversing the production growth of recent months," Commerzbank analyst Carsten Fritsch said.
OPEC members are due to meet informally in Algeria this month on the sidelines of the International Energy Forum (IEF). Russia is also expected to attend the IEF.
The chairman of Libya's National Oil Corp. visited the port of Zueitina on Sept. 14 and said he would work to lift force majeure there, according to the head of a guard force in control of the terminal.
NOC Chairman Mustafa Sanalla said Libyan production could be raised to 600,000 bbl/d from about 290,000 bbl/d within a month.
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