Oil was littled changed on Monday following a $3.00 slide over two days, as a US winter storm and Turkish bombing of Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq countered concerns about a weaker US economy.
US light, sweet crude for January delivery which expires on Tuesday, reversed earlier gains to stand 2 cents lower at $91.25 a barrel by 0755 GMT, adding to losses of nearly $1.00 on Friday and more than $2.00 the day before.
London Brent crude rose 12 cents to $91.81 a barrel. A snowstorm heading into New England lent support to prices, as traders factored in higher household use in the top heating oil consuming region. The storm brought snow, freezing rain and high winds to the US Northeast at the weekend.
Front-month heating oil futures rose by 0.2 percent to $2.6139 a gallon after closing on Friday at a more than $18.00 a barrel premium to crude, the highest in more than two years.
Turkish warplanes targetting Kurdish rebels bombed northern Iraq on Sunday, while up to 100,000 Turkish troops were near the Iraqi border, threatening a major operation that analysts feared could destabilise the region.
Analysts have said the action is not likely to affect oil shipments through Iraq's northern pipeline to the Turkish coast, which has only operated sporadically since the 2003 war, but fear it could further unsettle the rest of the oil-rich Middle East.
"I think this may be a bullish factor for the market," said Ken Hasegawa of Fimat Japan Inc Prices fell on Friday after data showed US consumer prices rose by their highest in more than two years in November due to surging energy costs and a host of other prices, dampening prospects for further interest-rate cuts and once again highlighting risks to the economy.
That data also helped the US dollar to its biggest daily rise against the euro in almost three years, adding further pressure to the dollar-denominated commodities complex.