Crude oil futures edged higher during mid-morning trade in Asia Dec. 24 on positive crude stocks data from the US Energy Information Administration and shrugging off uncertainty over the passing of a US stimulus package. At 10:42 am Singapore time (0242 GMT), the ICE Brent February contract was up 14 cents/b (0.27%) from the Dec. 23 settle at $50.34/b, while the February NYMEX light sweet crude contract was up 11 cents/b (0.23%) at $48.23/b. The markers had risen 2.24% and 2.34% respectively on Dec. 23. The uptrend continued into early trade in Asia Dec. 24, fueled by the release of EIA data showing that US crude inventories fell 570,000 barrels in the week ended Dec. 18 to 499.53 million barrels. Although this was short of analyst expectations of around a 4.7 million-barrel draw, […]