Crude oil futures ended lower on Tuesday as traders looked ahead to weekly inventory data, and appeared a bit hesitant to create significant long positions due to uncertain outlook for energy demand. The American Petroleum Institute's weekly oil report is due later today, while the Energy Information Administration (EIA) is scheduled to release its inventory data for the week ended January 22 on Wednesday. However, oil's decline was somewhat limited as prices found some support on reports about a blast in Saudi Arabia.
Crude oil futures for March fell $0.16 or 0.3 percent to settle at $52.61 barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. March Brent crude lost $0.10 or 0.2 percent to settle at $55.78 a barrel on London's Intercontinental Exchange.