* Dollar slips against basket of currencies
* U.S. oil data expected to show crude stock drop
* Coming Up: US API weekly inventory report, 4:30 p.m. EDT
(Updates prices, adds details, recasts, changes dateline
from LONDON)
By Edward McAllister
NEW YORK, Aug 3 (Reuters) - Oil prices pushed up to fresh
three-month highs above $82 per barrel on Tuesday, supported by
a weaker dollar which outweighed some weak U.S. economic data.
U.S. September crude <CLc1> futures rose 83 cents to $82.17
by 12:03 p.m. EDT (1603 GMT) after hitting an intraday high of
$82.59. The last time U.S. crude traded above $82 was on May 5.
ICE Brent <LCOc1> rose $1.60 to $82.42.
North Sea Brent crude oil futures rose above U.S. crude as
planned summer maintenance reduced supplies of prompt oil from
British and Norwegian oil fields.
"Crude was up on the weak dollar and Brent was higher on
maintenance, helping lead the complex higher," said Andrew
Lebow, broker at MF Global in New York.
U.S. crude futures have convincingly broken out and above
the $70-$80 a barrel trading range this week, which it had been
stuck in for most of the past three months. The move higher has
prompted some further buying.
The dollar tumbled to multimonth lows against the euro, yen
and sterling on fears economic recovery in Europe and Asia will
outpace that of the United States. [] A weaker dollar
<.DXY> helps make oil imports cheaper for non U.S. currency
holders.
U.S. consumer spending and incomes were flat in June while
the index for pending sales of previously owned homes fell to a
record low, which earlier knocked some steam out of crude's
rally and pulled equities lower. [] []
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The market appeared to receive some support from news
Israeli and Lebanese troops fought a rare cross-border skirmish
on Tuesday that killed four Lebanese and an Israeli officer in
the most serious violence along the frontier since a 2006 war.
[]
Neither Israel nor Lebanon have big oil deposits but
traders remember the Arab oil embargo during the Arab-Israeli
war in 1973, which disrupted oil flows and triggered panic
buying.
SUPPLIES AND HURRICANES
The oil market's attention will turn to U.S. inventories
later on Tuesday, when the American Petroleum Institute
publishes industry stockpile figures. Government statistics on
supply and demand will follow from the U.S. Energy Information
Administration on Wednesday. []
U.S. crude oil inventories probably fell last week as
imports slipped and the effect of Gulf of Mexico production was
interrupted briefly by Tropical Storm Bonnie, a Reuters
preliminary survey of analysts on Monday showed.
"U.S. inventory data is likely to be supportive as a big
decline in U.S. crude oil stocks is on the cards," said Carsten
Fritsch, commodities analyst at Commerzbank.
Crude stocks were expected to have fallen 1 million barrels
in the week to July 30, Monday's survey showed.
[]
Supplies of distillates, including diesel, were forecast to
have increased 1.1 million barrels, while gasoline stocks were
expected to have fallen 700,000 barrels, breaking a string of
five weeks of gains.
A drop in U.S. crude stockpiles would follow a jump of 7.3
million barrels to 360.8 million barrels in the week to July
23, the biggest surge since 2008, according to last week's EIA
report. Inventories last week were also expected to have
dropped because of Bonnie-related disruptions to shipping and
production.
Tropical Depression 4 turned into Tropical Storm Colin in
the middle of the Atlantic Ocean on Tuesday, the U.S. National
Hurricane Center said, but it was not expected to pose a threat
to the oil-rich Gulf of Mexico. []
(Additional reporting by Robert Gibbons and Selam Gebrekidan
in New York, Christopher Johnson in London and Alejandro
Barbajosa in Singapore)
