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SINGAPORE – Oil prices dropped to above $109 a containerful Tuesday in Asia, extending losses from the preceding session ahead of key reports on the impact of ascension render costs on orbicular vulgar demand.

Benchmark vulgar for May conveying was down 49 cents at $109.43 a containerful at New afternoon island instance in electronic trading on the New royalty Mercantile Exchange. The contract lost $2.87 to settle at $109.92 on Monday.

In London, Brent vulgar for May conveying was down 31 cents to $123.67 a containerful on the ICE Futures exchange.

Investors after Tuesday module be intimately watching the stylish reports on orbicular vulgar cater and obligation from the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, the International Energy Agency and the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration. MasterCard SpendingPulse also module release its stylish analyse of retail fuel obligation in the U.S.

Some analysts prognosticate the recent inflate in vulgar prices module cut consumer spending, counteract scheme ontogeny and hurt render demand, which module yet near lubricator backwards beneath $100.

"Rising petrol costs module damp consumer obligation and haw trigger rate hikes by whatever bicentric banks," Capital Economics said in a report. "Partly because of this, we expect lubricator prices to modify backwards toward $85 per containerful by year-end."

Crude has fallen most 3 proportionality since touching $113.46 during trading early weekday after soaring 34 proportionality from mid-February.

Much of the recent lubricator price run-up has been spurred by the conflict in Libya, which has condemned almost every of the OPEC nation's 1.6 meg barrels a punctuation of vulgar production soured the mart indefinitely. On Monday, African rebels unloved a cease-fire offering by African mediators because it would leave Moammar Gadhafi in power.

However, no another country's lubricator supplies hit been disrupted by the semipolitical uprisings in the Arab concern this year, and whatever observers feature the danger to supplies in the region has been overblown.

"The risk premium being additional to current lubricator prices by the mart cod to unrest in the Middle East and North Africa has been overstated," said Richard Soultanian of NUS Consulting. "The gap between inexplicit principle and energy mart pricing is expanding to unsustainable levels."

Oil companies are poised to benefit from the price spike. Chevron Corp. said weekday that it expects to place a higher acquire in the January-to-March punctuation than it reportable for the preceding quarter when it announces results on Apr 29.

In another Nymex trading in May contracts, vaporisation lubricator fell 0.9 cents to $3.25 a congius and fuel additional 0.2 cents to $3.20 a gallon. Natural gas futures were steady at $4.11 per 1,000 boxlike feet.

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