LONDON: Oil prices slipped in choppy trading Wednesday, reversing earlier gains as the focus shifted to signs China's economy might be cooling and to an expected increase in US crude oil stocks. US crude was trading $2.16 lower at $101.72 by 1339 GMT. ICE Brent crude futures were $1.53 lower at $116.10. China's inflation eased in April to 5.3 percent, and other data including industrial output and loans suggested the world's second-biggest economy might be cooling, with less need for further aggressive monetary tightening. “Inflation has cooled slightly,” Thorbjorn Bak Jensen with Global Risk Management in Denmark said. “But there is still heavy growth in retail sales and production.” The US government is due to release weekly oil data at 1430 GMT. Analysts expect a fall in gasoline stocks for the 12th consecutive week, while crude oil stockpiles were forecast for a 1.4 million barrel increase. Some analysts said the dip in prices was driven by short-term profit-taking and technical indications to sell. Mike Witter with Societe Generale expected volatility would remain in the oil market. “Macro data from the US, Europe and China has been decidedly mixed in the last two weeks, helping to trigger fear and extreme volatility,” he said in a research note. China's implied oil demand, a combination of crude oil throughput and net imports of refined oil products, was at 9.32 million barrels per day (bpd) in April, Reuters calculations showed on Wednesday, up 8.8 percent from a year earlier and the third highest ever. With the summer US driving season soon to start, investors are focusing on the flood along the Mississippi River, which threatened to disrupt oil refineries amid falling inventories of gasoline in the world's top gas market. “US gasoline inventories have been coming off, so we still see healthy demand despite concerns of higher commodity prices slowing consumption,” said Serene Lim, an ANZ Bank oil analyst based in Singapore. US gasoline stocks fell by 1.8 million barrels in the week to May 6, the American Petroleum Institute said late on Tuesday, versus an expected drop of 200,000 barrels. Inventories are now nearly 11 million barrels below levels this time last year. OPEC holds steady demand forecast OPEC is holding its 2011 oil demand growth forecast unchanged, but cautions that while the market currently appears balanced, there is uncertainty about the US economic recovery and Japanese demand. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) said Wednesday in its monthly report that it saw oil demand growing at 1.4 million barrels per year, largely unchanged from the previous month. Oil prices have remained well above $100 per barrel for weeks, boosted by disruptions in Libyan oil output and concerns that the unrest in the Arab world could spill over to key OPEC members in the region. The 12-nation producer bloc that supplies about 35 percent of the world's crude is to meet on June 8, but is not expected to revise its output quotas.
