Oil rose for a second day after China, the world’s second-biggest energyconsuming country, said yesterday crude imports increased by 14 percent in April.

Natural gas for June delivery rose 14.7 cents, or 3.4 percent, to settle at $4.55 on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the highest close since Feb, 13. Gas has gained 41 percent since touching $3.155 on April 27, its lowest price since September 2002. It rose to the highest price in three months on speculation demand for energy will begin to rebound as the recession eases.

U. S. crude inventories likely increased for the tenth straight time last week, with imports seen strong enough to overshadow any gain in refinery utilization, a poll showed on Tuesday.

On average, crude stocks could have risen 1.4 million barrels, the poll showed, with the majority of the forecasters expected a build and two predicting a drawdown.

Gasoline stocks should show an increase of 200,000 barrels on average, while distillates could have gained 1.3 million barrels, according to a survey. The American Petroleum Institute said in a report that U. S. crude inventories fell last week by 3.1 million barrels, to 370.7 million barrels, gasoline stocks declined 2.0 million barrels, to 211.1 million barrels, and distillate stocks dropped 1.8 million barrels to 143.6 million barrels.

Crude Oil: Today any major decline in gasoline inventories may trigger sharp upside in crude oil futures. We recommend to buy crude oil futures at dip of a percent and a half. Trend remains up in crude oil. In Natural Gas, we recommend to book profits at Rs. 226 as prices have shot up sharply in short span of time.

Crude: Crude prices have moved up, as per our expectation in previous session. The RSI breached the Resistance levels yesterday, and is now moving up, thus a positive sign for crude. The rising ADX and +DI is also favoring the uptrend in crude. Crude continues to remain in the uptrend, thus we recommend buying at dips around
2880-900 levels, targeting 2975-80.

Natural Gas: Natural Gas over the period of two weeks has shown a smart revive from the bottom of 166, making a remarkable high of 221.6. RSI has breached the resistance line indicating positive signal. Looking at the ADX, the uptrend looks strong. Thus, one can remain long in Natural Gas at lower levels during the day, targeting at 226 during the session.