08:59 AM EDT, 06/18/2024 (MT Newswires) -- Oil was mostly steady early on Tuesday after rising to a six-week high a day earlier on expectations for high summer demand while OPEC+ continues to limit supply.

West Texas Intermediate for July delivery was last seen down US$0.03 to US$80.30, after rising to the highest since April 30 on Monday, while August Brent crude, the global benchmark, was down US$0.03 to US$84.22.

Strong summer demand is expected to deplete oil inventories, with supply restricted after OPEC+ earlier this month extended 2.2-million barrels per day of supply cuts slated to end on June 30 to the end of September. Forecasters are looking for U.S. inventories, which have trended mostly higher over the past six weeks, to show a drop when the Energy Information Administration issues its weekly survey on Thursday, a day later than usual due to the Juneteenth holiday.

Walt Chancellor, an energy strategist at Macquarie Group, is forecasting that U.S. crude inventories will be down 5.5 million barrels for the week ending June 14. This compares with and increase of 3.7 million barrels for the week ending June 7.

However weaker demand in China may limit any price gains. Reuters on Monday reported output from China's refineries fell 1.8 percent in May from the prior year, as the country's growth slows amid a debt crisis in its real-estate sector.