Crude oil higher, but stops short of $60 per barrel

While crude oil prices rose on Tuesday, even the prospect of more cold weather did not send prices above the $60 per barrel level. Analysts blamed the reluctance of the market to breach that level on natural gas prices that showed no signs of a rally.

Brent crude for March delivery added 36 cents to $58.47 per barrel late in the session in London. Meanwhile, West Texas Intermediate crude March contracts were up 38 cents to $59.12 after going as high as $59.99 earlier. Nymex March heating oil gained a cent and a half to $1.6900 per gallon, but Nymex March Henry Hub natural gas held steady at $7.640 per million British thermal units. With new inventories figures due on Wednesday, analysts expect that distillate stockpiles, which include heating oil, will have dropped 3.2 million barrels in the week ending February 2.

In other news, the Energy Information Administration said that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries cut its production by 600,000 barrels per day in the last quarter of last year, half of the cuts it promised. The EIA said further that it expects the oil cartel to deliver 300,000 barrels per day of the 500,000 barrel per day production cut that it said it would implement beginning February 1.