* U.S. crude inventories down for 11th straight week -poll
* Brent reasserts premium over "dislocated" WTI
* Chinese GDP may provide support for prices -analysts
* Coming Up: API inventory report, 2030 GMT
By Alejandro Barbajosa
SINGAPORE, April 13 (Reuters) - Oil fell for a
fifth-straight session to about $84 on Tuesday, almost erasing
April's gains, as a forecast increase in U.S. crude inventories
fanned concern about excess supplies and sluggish demand
growth.
U.S. crude stockpiles probably rose for the 11th week in a
row last week, a Reuters survey showed ahead of an industry
supply report later on Tuesday.
"The market is turning back into consolidation mode," said
Stefan Graber, a commodities analyst with Credit Suisse in
Singapore.
"There have been fundamental improvements, but the last two
weeks have not really shown that much improvement to warrant
the strong move higher. There is not a lot of fresh impulse to
push prices further."
Front-month West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude <CLc1>, the
U.S. crude benchmark, slid 9 cents to $84.25 a barrel at 0253
GMT, down almost $3 from an 18-month high of $87.09 a week ago.
However ICE Brent crude, the marker for the Atlantic Basin
and most of Europe, Africa and Asia, reasserted a premium it
gained over WTI on Monday, the first time on a sustained basis
this year. Brent rose on Tuesday by 5 cents to $84.82.
The abundance of crude in storage in Cushing, Oklahoma, the
pricing point for WTI crude, occasionally triggers a disconnect
between the U.S. benchmark and global crude markets better
represented by Brent. Traders and analysts label this price
divergence as "dislocation."
For a FACTBOX on why WTI is trading below Brent, click:
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WTI VS BRENT
"On the WTI side we have the inventory situation simply not
improving much further and lots of imports into the U.S.,"
Graber said. "Crude that was outside in floating storage is
also coming back onshore."
U.S. crude stockpiles probably gained 1.6 million barrels
the week ended April 9, the Reuters poll showed, while supplies
of distillates including heating oil and diesel may have added
1 million barrels. Gasoline stocks were anticipated to have
slid 700,000 barrels, according to the poll.
The American Petroleum Institute (API) will release U.S.
inventory data on Tuesday at 2030 GMT, followed by government
statistics from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) on
Wednesday at 1400 GMT.
Support for oil prices could come from China's GDP data to
be published on Thursday, Credit Suisse's Graber said.
The Chinese economy probably grew 11.5 percent in the first
quarter, a Reuters survey showed. That would be the fastest
year-on-year rate of growth since the third quarter of 2007.
[]
China's March crude oil imports jumped to their
second-highest monthly level on record of 4.95 million bpd, up
2.5 percent from February on a per-day basis. []
"China's oil imports were strong numbers and it confirms
that the uptrend in Chinese consumption remains intact," Graber
said. "But China alone doesn't seem to enough to keep the rally
going."
(Editing by Ed Lane)
