Oil rebounds in Asian trade, demand worries will cap gains

Oil rebounded in Asian trade today from overnight falls but worries over sluggish US energy demand will likely cap the price surge, analysts said.

New York's main contract, light sweet crude for January delivery was 10 cents higher at USD 70.64 a barrel.
    
Brent North Sea crude for January delivery added 16 cents to USD 72.02 a barrel.
    
Investors remained concerned over weak energy demand in the US, the world's biggest oil consumer, analysts said.

"The oil market remains troubled by subdued US oil demand," analysts from the Commonwealth Bank of Australia said in a report, referring to the latest energy data from the US Department of Energy (DoE).

The DoE in its weekly report Wednesday said distillate stocks rose by 1.6 million barrels in the week ended December 4 against market expectations for a drop of 500,000 barrels.

Distillates, which include heating fuel, usually falls at this time of the year as demand picks up as the northern hemisphere winter season begins to set in.

The DoE said US crude reserves fell by 3.8 million barrels last week but were 4.4 per cent higher than their year-ago level and above the upper limit of the average range for this time of year.
    
Over the past four weeks, the US consumed on average 18.5 million barrels of petroleum products a day, a decline of 3.0 per cent from the same period a year ago.