* U.S. EIA to unveil monthly short-term outlook later
* U.S. March PPI, retail sales due at 1230 GMT
By Jennifer Tan
SINGAPORE, April 14 (Reuters) - Oil slipped under $50 a
barrel on Tuesday, extending its 4.2 percent fall overnight
after the International Energy Agency slashed its demand
forecast on expectations of another rise in U.S. crude stocks.
As trading picks up after the Easter holiday, the market
will seek confirmation of the IEA's bearish forecast this week.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) releases
its short-term energy outlook later in the day, which will have
give an estimate of global and U.S. oil demand for the year,
while OPEC publishes its monthly view on Wednesday.
By 0245 GMT, U.S. crude for May delivery <CLc1> was down 60
cents at $49.45, after falling $2.19 to settle at $50.05
overnight. ICE Brent crude <LCOc1> was down 8 cents at $52.06.
Oil prices have been stuck in a $47-$54-range for the past
four weeks, having recovered from a low of $32.40 in December.
They are still down almost $100 from a record high above $147
last July.
The IEA said on Friday world oil demand would fall by 2.4
million barrels per day (bpd) this year from 2008 to 83.4
million bpd, as the rate of contraction in fuel consumption
reached levels last seen in the early 1980s. []
"The IEA report is a wake-up call of sorts, and we will see
a widening of the contango in the market. We'd probably see
front-month crude trading down, deep into the $40s in the near
term," said Tony Nunan, assistant manager of risk management at
Tokyo-based Mitsubishi Corp.
"But this is a two-tiered market -- one that's weak in the
short term due to collapsing demand and high inventories, but
stronger in the medium term, based on the belief that all the
stimulus packages will probably get the economy out of its funk
by year-end."
The release of Producer Price Index (PPI) and retail sales
for March at 1230 GMT will offer more clues on the health of
the U.S. economy.
Economists in a Reuters survey forecast the PPI will stay
flat, compared with a 0.1 percent increase in February, and
retail sales to rise 0.3 percent, versus a 0.1 percent drop in
the previous month.
The EIA's monthly outlook is due at 1230 GMT, after which
U.S. American Petroleum Institute (API) will unveil its weekly
inventory data at 2030 GMT.
The preliminary forecast ahead of the weekly API/EIA
inventory reports calls for a 2.2 million barrel increase in
crude stocks, a 1.0 million barrel decline in distillate
supplies and a 700,000 barrel drawdown in gasoline stocks.
[]
On the supply front, Saudi Arabia will trim oil supplies to
some of its Asian customers in May, and one European buyer
suggested the world's top exporter was concerned about high
inventories. []
Saudi Arabia has been largely responsible for OPEC's high
level of compliance -- estimated at 80 percent -- with
agreements to cut output by a total of 4.2 million bpd since
September last year.
Iran's OPEC governor Mohammad Ali Khatibi said if oil
demand continued to fall, the group might decide to further cut
its oil output, but Qatar's Oil Minister Abdullah al-Attiyah
said it was "too early to react" to the IEA forecast.
[] []
(Editing by Ben Tan)
