Crude-oil futures rose in Asian trading hours Wednesday on strong Chinese trade data including record oil-import volumes and market expectations that U.S. supply bottlenecks will start to ease. On the New York Mercantile Exchange, light, sweet crude futures for delivery in March traded at $100.59 a barrel at 0618 GMT, up $0.65 in the Globex electronic session. March Brent crude on London’s ICE Futures exchange rose $0.17 to $108.85 a barrel. U.S. crude-oil supplies rose by 2.1 million barrels last week, but inventories at the oil-delivery hub of Cushing, Okla. fell by 2.5 million barrels, data from the American Petroleum Institute, an industry group, showed late Tuesday. The API also said gasoline stockpiles fell by 479,000 barrels, while distillate stocks dropped by 1.5 million barrels as heating oil demand remained strong due to cold weather. The closely watched survey from the Energy Information Administration is due […]