West Texas Intermediate crude was little changed after erasing a gain of 1.1 percent.

WTI for March delivery increased 18 cents to $97.37 a barrel at 10:50 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The volume of all futures traded was 7 percent lower than the 100-day average.

Brent for March settlement advanced 14 cents to $105.92 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. Volume was near the 100-day average. The European benchmark crude’s premium to WTI narrowed to as little as $7.91 a barrel, slipping below $8 for the first time since Oct. 10.

Crude inventories rose 440,000 barrels to 358.1 million last week, the Energy Information Administration reported today. The report was projected to show a 2.55 million-barrel gain, according to the median estimate of 10 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg.

Supplies of crude at Cushing, Oklahoma, the delivery point for WTI traded in New York, declined 1.55 million barrels to 40.3 million, the report showed.

U.S. crude production was unchanged at 8.04 million barrels a day, the EIA said. It rose to 8.16 million in the week ended Jan. 10, the highest level since 1988, as output surged on a combination of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, which has unlocked supplies trapped in shale formations.

Gasoline stockpiles rose by 505,000 barrels to 235 million in the week ended Jan. 31. A 1.15 million-barrel gain was forecast.

Refineries operated at 86.1 percent of capacity, down 2.1 percentage points from the prior week, the report showed.

The price of gold rose to one-week high after the release of the employment report from ADP. As shown by recent data that were presented Automatic Data Processing (ADP), in January, private sector employment increased markedly , although not enough to confirm the evaluation of many economists.

According to a report last month, the number of employed increased by 175,000 people, compared with a revised downward indicator for the previous month at 227 million ( initially reported growth of 238 thousand jobs ) . Add that, according to the average forecast of this indicator would grow by 191 thousand

Analysts predict a rise in gold prices in the near future due to investors' concerns over global economic growth and the withdrawal of capital from emerging markets after the Fed reduce incentives .

After a 28 percent drop in 2013, with the beginning of the year gold has risen in price by 4 percent due to power low-risk assets . Pointing to increased investor interest in precious metals , stocks the world's largest gold exchange-traded fund secured SPDR Gold Trust on Tuesday rose by 3.89 tonnes to 797.05 tonnes.

Demand in the physical market at the same time reduced due to celebrate the New Year by the lunar calendar in China, the rise in gold prices and the weakening of national currencies in other Asian countries .

The cost of the April gold futures on the COMEX today rose to $ 1274.50 per ounce

Gold $1,255.00 +3.80 +0.30%

Oil $97.37 +0.18 +0.19%