Fri Sep 4, 2009 5:00am EDT

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil ticked up above $68 a barrel on Friday in relatively thin dealing as investors awaited jobs data from the United States to provide some insight into the health of the world's top economy.

By 4:25 a.m. EDT, U.S. crude was up 40 cents at $68.36 a barrel. London Brent crude rose 28 cents to $67.40.

"We are seeing directionless trading today ahead of the U.S. employment report," said Tony Nunan, risk manager at Mitsubishi Corp. in Tokyo.

"The big issue is that a lot of the economic indicators have shown improvement, except for the employment numbers, and high unemployment figures are bad for overall oil demand."

The U.S. Labor Department will release the August non-farm payrolls report at 8:30 a.m. EDT. Economists polled by Reuters forecast 225,000 jobs were lost last month, the least amount in a year.

Other markets also moved cautiously in a relatively narrow range ahead of the jobs data. Equity markets mostly edged higher while the dollar dipped against the yen.

Recent data has given mixed signals on the health of the U.S. economy.

HIGH INVENTOREIS, OPEC

Oil prices have traded in a small price range between about $67 and $69.40 a barrel for three days and high levels of oil inventories have pushed them down by about 6 percent from the end of last week.

If prices fall by that much for the week by the close on Friday, it would mark its biggest weekly decline in eight weeks.

The high oil inventory levels in many key consuming countries, such as the United States and China, have been a concern for OPEC, which meets next week in Vienna to discuss its output policy.

Most analysts expect the producer group, the source of more than a third of the world's oil supply, will agree to maintain its official output target unchanged to keep prices stable around $70 and to help the world economy remain on a recovery path.

(Reporting by Ikuko Kurahone in London and Jennifer Tan in Singapore; editing by Sue Thomas)

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

Wed Sep 2, 2009 2:18am EDT

By

BEIJING (Reuters) - China's crude oil stocks climbed to near-record highs at the end of July after a fall in June, an industry newsletter reported, as record crude imports outpaced the record amount of crude refiners processed.

The data, which also confirmed a big build in diesel stocks reported by Reuters in early August, suggested that supplies in the world's No. 2 oil user are building up faster than they can be consumed, despite a revival in demand on the back of economic expansion.

Crude stockpiles, including both strategic reserves and commercial ones, were at 38.7 million tonnes or 282.5 million barrels at the end of July, up 1 million tonnes and a touch below the record high in May at 38.75 million tonnes, China OGP, run by official Xinhua News Agency, reported.

The stocks level is equivalent to about 76 days of net crude imports in China, which has in recent months overtaken Japan as the world's No.2 crude buyer after the United States, as refiners stepped up purchases to feed new capacities inspired by a favorable fuel pricing system.

For a graphic of China's crude oil stocks, click:

"China's current fuel price mechanism will for sure encourage refiners to maximize throughput," said a trading official with state-run PetroChina (

The OGP fuel figures, however, were smaller than the data released by China Petroleum and Chemical Industry Association which also included kerosene inventories that analysts said too small to fill the gap between the two sets of data.

It was unclear what accounts for the difference, but an executive at CNPC, who declined to be named, said the CPCIA figures were more reliable than OGP's.

(Additional reporting by Eadie Chen and Chen Aizhu; Editing by Ben Tan)

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved