17.07.201815:27:00UTC+00Oil Rebounds After Early Weakness, Ends Marginally Up

After early weakness, crude oil futures recovered to end slightly higher on Tuesday, amid reports about a likely drop in U.S. crude stockpiles last week.

However, due to increased crude oil supplies from Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and talks about possible U.S. waivers on Iran oil sanctions, crude's uptick was just marginal today.

Crude oil futures for August ended at $68.08 a barrel, gaining 2 cents.

After Monday's 4.2% plunge, crude oil futures shed about 1.5% earlier in today's session, but gradually inched higher, on reports about a production outage in Libya.

Libya's National Oil Corporation has reportedly declared force majeure on crude oil loadings as of July 16 at the Zawiya port, citing reduced production at the Sharara oil field following the attack and abduction of four employees of Akakus, the company operating the field.

Libya had reopened its eastern oil ports and started to ramp up production only a few days ago. The latest development is likely to result in a production drop of about 160,000 barrels per day at Sharara, National Oil Corporation is reported to have said.

Meanwhile, traders are looking ahead to weekly U.S. petroleum inventory data from the American Petroleum Institute, due later in the day and the Energy Information Administration's data on U.S. crude stockpiles, due on Wednesday.