* OPEC should leave output targets unchanged -Libya
* Technicals show oil headed towards $72.81 []
* Coming Up: U.S. weekly jobless claims; 1230 GMT
(Adds graphic on Brent vs WTI, restart of Enbridge pipe 6B)
By Alejandro Barbajosa
SINGAPORE, Sept 23 (Reuters) - Oil was steady below $75 on
Thursday after government data showed an unexpected increase in
U.S. crude and gasoline stockpiles, ahead of key jobs and
housing reports later in the day.
The inventory increase last week, despite the eight
day-long shutdown of the biggest pipeline shipping Canadian
crude to the U.S., reaffirmed views that prices would mostly
remain rangebound for the rest of the year between $70 and $80,
the preferred level for OPEC producers.
Front-month U.S. crude for November <CLc1> rose 15 cents to
$74.86 a barrel by 0626 GMT, while November ICE Brent fell 19
cents to $77.76. The so-called OPEC basket price that the
organisation uses to gauge the rate of crudes from its members
has averaged $75.24 so far this year.
"The oil price that key OPEC leaders signalled as being a
fair and reasonable one during the weakest phase of the
economic cycle has dominated the year, even if it could now be
argued that the economic cycle has moved on a bit," Barclays
Capital analysts headed by Paul Horsnell said.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries
should keep its oil output targets unchanged at a meeting next
month and comply more closely with its production agreements,
the top oil official for OPEC member Libya said on Wednesday.
[]
Markets will be looking at a weekly employment report and
housing data for the United States later on Thursday, seeking
evidence that the economic recovery in the world's largest oil
consumer is continuing apace.
GROWING OVERHANG
With the latest gains in U.S. oil inventories, the
"overhang above the five-year average has pushed above 100
million barrels for the first time in the current cycle,"
Barclays said.
U.S. total petroleum stockpiles climbed to a record 1.144
billion barrels last week, the Energy Information
Administration said in a Wednesday report, the highest level
since it began collecting weekly data in 1990. []
The nation's crude inventories rose 970,000 barrels in the
week to Sept. 17 as imports increased, according to the EIA.
Analysts polled by Reuters had expected a decrease of 1.9
million barrels after a leak forced the shutdown of Enbridge's
<ENB.TO> 670,000-bpd 6A pipeline, which supplies refineries in
the Midwest and carries Canadian crude oil to the key storage
hub in Cushing, Oklahoma. The duct halted shipments from Sept.
9-17.
Crude stocks at Cushing, the pricing point for U.S. crude,
fell by 210,000 barrels last week to 34.74 million barrels,
their seventh straight drop, the EIA said.
The drop in Cushing supplies helped narrow the premium of
December U.S. crude to the November contract to about $1.37 a
barrel from $1.59 at Wednesday's settlement. It also helped
narrow the premium of November Brent to the U.S. benchmark West
Texas Intermediate (WTI).
For a graphic on Brent's premium to WTI:
http://graphics.thomsonreuters.com/AS/0810/ABE_20102309135148.jp
g Gasoline stocks rose unexpectedly by 1.59 million
barrels, while distillate supplies of fuels including heating
oil and diesel increased slightly more than forecast, adding
347,000 barrels.
U.S. regulators on Wednesday approved a gradual restart of
an Enbridge Inc <ENB.TO> oil pipeline that ruptured more than
eight weeks ago, Line 6B, fouling a Michigan river system and
squeezing oil supplies for U.S. and Canadian refiners.
[]
In other markets, the U.S. dollar was on the defensive on
Thursday as talk the Federal Reserve will soon start printing
more of the currency drove down Treasury yields and kept the
greenback pinned near a five-month low against the euro. []
Major stock markets declined on Wednesday as some
technology companies slumped and the Federal Reserve's downbeat
assessment of the U.S. economy weighed on sentiment. Holidays
in Japan, China, Hong Kong and South Korea kept some major
stock markets closed on Thursday. []
The U.S. National Hurricane Center on Wednesday said there
was a 60 percent chance a tropical depression could form in the
central southern Caribbean Sea over the next 48 hours.
[]
Most computer weather models continued to forecast the
system would move west across the Caribbean and hit Central
America in Honduras or Belize in about four or five days,
missing U.S. oil and natural gas operations in the northern
Gulf of Mexico.
(Editing by Manash Goswami)
