Oil hovered at $61 today as the market balanced growing US crude stockpiles with concerns over heating fuel supply in the face of a looming winter and slow output recovery in the Gulf of Mexico.
US light crude inched up one cent to $61.10 a barrel by 6.43am after gaining 43 cents on yesterday. London Brent crude traded down 6 cents at $59.08 a barrel.
Demand for distillate fuels such as heating oil peaks in the northern hemisphere's winter.
A rise in US fuel demand could come while the recovery of oil and natural gas production from the storm-battered Gulf of Mexico - home to more than a quarter of US domestic output - remains slow.
Some 1.022 million barrels per day bpd or 68 per cent of the Gulf's crude output stayed shut on yesterday, along with 5.559 billion cubic feet per day or nearly 56 per cent of gas output, the US government said - a thin improvement from Wednesday.
Dampening hopes of an early recovery, the US Interior Department said that energy operations in the Gulf of Mexico would not return to normal until late March next year.