Oil prices edged higher on Wednesday ahead of weekly US inventory data expected to show a fall in crude stockpiles but rising product tanks. Global supply outages and forecasts for colder weather in the US Northeast have also underpinned the market this week, keeping prices at the top end of their six-week range. US light crude moved 36 cents higher to $46.04 a barrel, below on Monday's $47.30 peak.
Dealers were keeping to the sidelines ahead of the US government's weekly report on oil stockpiles due, forecast by analysts to show a 1.7 million-barrel decline in crude supplies but higher gasoline and distillate inventories.
Milder temperatures in the Northeast, the biggest heating oil market in the world, tempered demand last week, allowing refiners to top up tanks running 9 percent below year-ago levels, analysts said in a Reuters poll.
But forecasts that the winter will turn chillier than usual toward the end of this month and into February have kept fears of a winter supply crunch from receding.
Global supply outages and jitters ahead of Iraqi elections at month's end have also lifted prices, with more than 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) of output in the US Gulf of Mexico and Norway's North Sea offline.
Norway's Station sought permission on Tuesday to restart almost half the 205,000-bpd of production it halted in late November due to a gas leak.
Iraqi exports have also been stymied by continued sabotage on its northern pipeline infrastructure and power problems in the south, forcing Baghdad to cut all its February-June Basra Light sales contracts by 10 percent, or about 160,000 bpd.
Analysts are also worried that violence leading up to or following the January 30 elections could further hamper oil flows, singled out as a prime target by al Qaeda leader, Osama bin Laden.