Oil steadies after U.S. crude data

By Christopher Johnson

LONDON (Reuters) - Oil prices steadied on Thursday on news that U.S. crude stocks fell for a fourth week, suggesting the U.S. market was rebalancing after a long period of oversupply.

Data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA) on Thursday showed crude oil inventories fell by 2.8 million barrels in the last week, compared with analysts' expectations for an decrease of 857,000 barrels.

The figures helped support a market that has come under heavy pressure due to a 10-day rally in the dollar, which makes fuel more expensive for holders of other currencies.

The dollar has risen more than 4 percent against a basket of currencies over the last 10 days, helping accelerate a fall in oil prices from a five-month high early in May.

Front-month Brent was unchanged at $62.06 a barrel by 1515 GMT, after earlier reaching an intra-day low of $61.24, its weakest since mid-April.

U.S. crude futures were down 50 cents from their last settlement at $57.01 per barrel.

Industry group American Petroleum Institute (API) said on Wednesday that U.S. crude oil inventories rose by 1.3 million barrels last week, following three weeks of withdrawals.

U.S. crude received some support from Canadian wildfires that forced the evacuation of several oil and gas sands production sites on Wednesday.

The fires have caused energy companies operating in Alberta, the largest source of U.S. oil imports, to shut in 233,000 barrels per day of production, or roughly 10 percent of total Canadian oil sands output.

(Additional reporting by Henning Gloystein and Florence Tan in Singapore; Editing by Dale Hudson and David Evans)