Nymex crude futures inched down on light technical selling on Tuesday as profits were locked in from the previous day's jump, while traders and analysts expect only small movements ahead of weekly oil inventory data.
US light crude oil for May delivery was down 11 cents, or 0.29 percent, at $37.73 a barrel in ACCESS electronic trading. Trading volume was 1,192 contracts excluding spread deals.
On Monday, the Nymex May crude contract settled up 70 cents, or 1.88 percent, at $37.84, mainly because of strong global demand paced by China's booming economy, traders said.
Trading resumed on Monday after a break on Friday for Easter.
"The fluctuation will be limited in a small range on Tuesday as the market is now focusing on US oil data," said Shun Maruyama, an oil analyst at UFJ Institute Ltd.
"Speculators are looking at strong Chinese demand now that US crude inventories are not extremely low any more," Maruyama added.
He put the first support line at $37 and first key resistance level at $37.95, on Monday's intrude high price for the prompt month contract.
London's International Petroleum Exchange, closed for Easter since on Thursday, reopens on Tuesday.
May Brent crude oil was not trading and was quoted at Thursday's settlement of $33.44 a barrel.
A Reuters poll of eight energy market analysts saw an average stock increase of 1.0 million barrels in the week to April 9, resuming a recent weekly trend of stock builds that was punctured by a 2.1 million barrel decline in the week to April 2.
The US Energy Information Administration is scheduled to release its weekly inventory data on Wednesday.
On Friday, International Energy Agency (IEA) reported that Chinese oil demand growth continued to surpass expectations.
The IEA revised up its estimate of incremental Chinese oil demand in the first quarter by 180,000 barrels per day (bpd) to a record 6.14 million bpd, an 18 percent increase from the same period last year.
Saudi Arabia raised May crude exports to some customers, despite an Opec agreement to cut production, because of crude backed out of refineries undergoing maintenance in the kingdom, industry sources said on Monday.
Three Japanese refiners who said they had received notification of a rise in Saudi term contract supplies for next month confirmed the surprise export increase.
For the United States, a major US oil company and a US refinery which have separate types of contracts with Saudi Arabia confirmed their allocations were kept steady at 30 to 35 percent under their full annual contracts, unchanged from April.
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