Oil

Oil prices finish little changedNEW YORK (AP) - Oil prices finished little changed Thursday, paring an earlier drop of more than $1 a barrel prompted by expectations for warmer weather in the U.S. Northeast, a major consumer of heating oil.Light, sweet crude for March delivery lost a penny to settle at $57.99 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange.Brent crude at London's ICE Futures exchange rose 17 cents to close at $57.60 a barrel.With little breaking news to spark action in either direction Thursday, analysts said the market weighed a a forecast for warmer weather and continued to mull over inventory data from a day earlier.The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said it expects above-normal temperatures next week to end a spate of freezing weather in the Northeast, which accounts for 80 percent of the nation's heating oil demand. But the bitter cold of recent weeks hasn't resulted in as sharp a drawdown of heating oil stockpiles as market analysts expected.Oil prices tumbled more than $1 on Wednesday after the Energy Information Administration reported that distillate fuel stocks -- which include diesel fuel and heating oil -- fell by 3 million barrels last week. Analysts had expected a bigger pull of 4.3 million barrels, according to a survey by Dow Jones Newswires."With less than six weeks left to go until spring begins, the winter window is rapidly closing in on the bulls," which could pressure crude prices closer to $50 than $60 a barrel, said Man Financial analyst Edward Meir, in a report.Except for a bounce higher on Tuesday, oil prices have been on the decline all week.The day's earlier drop as low as $56.65 a barrel was due in part to some liquidation of the March crude oil contract ahead of Tuesday's upcoming expiration, said Tim Evans, an energy analyst with Citigroup Futures Research.Otherwise, it was a "pretty dull" trading day, he said.The market stemmed its earlier losses on an indicator of increased demand, as the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries revised up its estimate how much supply from OPEC will be needed this year by 150,000 barrels per day to 30.25 million barrels per day, according to a Dow Jones Newswires report Thursday.OPEC oil exports in the four weeks ending March 3 are seen falling 160,000 barrels per day from a month ago, according to a report by tanker-tracking consultants Oil Movements.The report got a mixed reaction from traders, Evans said. The bears maintained that it still indicates poor compliance with OPEC's promised production cuts, agreed upon last fall.Evans took the bullish stance: "It's still more barrels being taken out of the market," he said. "At some point OPEC production will decline to the point where it does pinch."Elsewhere, an EIA report on natural gas inventories for the week ended Feb. 9 showed a withdrawal of 259 billion cubic feet from underground storage -- a substantial drawdown but one that leaves stocks still well above the five-year average for this time of year.Nymex natural gas prices rose 5.1 cents to $7.292 per 1,000 cubic feet, while heating oil futures fell about a penny to $1.6271 a gallon. Gasoline futures dipped 1.9 cents to settle at $1.5972 a gallon.