Oil steady above $ 52 after falling on ample supply

SINGAPORE, Jan 23 (Reuters) Oil held above on Tuesday, after resuming its slide the previous day, as a cold snap in the U.S.

Northeast was seen coming too late to support winter demand in the face of ample heating fuel supplies.

U.S. light crude for March delivery on its first day as front-month, was up 2 cents at .60 a barrel by 0417 GMT.

The February contract expired on Monday at .13, down 1.65 percent, after dropping as low as .80, as concerns turned again to the high stockpiles in the United States and as traders liquidated their positions ahead of expiry.

London Brent crude was up 5 cents at .75.

Oil prices have shed nearly 33 percent from peaks near a barrel hit in mid-July, and down almost 15 percent since the start of this year, and energy analysts said the weakness had recently caused speculators to bet on further losses.

''The draw in (U.S. distillates) inventories would have to be a big drop to surprise the market. The market is pretty well supplied for winter,'' said Tobin Gorey, analyst at Australia's Commonwealth Bank.

A burst of chilly weather last week in the U.S. Northeast, the world's largest regional heating oil market, could have cut into U.S. distillates supplies for the first time in six weeks, a Reuters poll of industry analysts showed.

Average forecast among nine analysts called for an 800,000-barrel drawdown in distillate stocks, which include heating oil, in the week ended Jan. 19.

That would reverse five successive weekly builds in distillates stocks, but stronger demand may not be enough to eat into stocks that are nearly 5 percent above year-ago levels.

The U.S. National Weather service said on Monday that U.S.

heating demand would be about 1.4 percent below normal in the week ending Jan. 27, even though demand in the Northeast is expected to be 1.7 percent above normal as temperatures are colder-than-normal this week Longer term, temperatures in both the Northeast and Midwest will average above normal in February and March, private forecaster WSI Corp. said on Monday, further capping market gains.

The poll also forecast an average 700,000-barrel rise in crude inventories, after an unexpectedly large increase of 6.8 million barrels last week, as well as a 1.5 million-barrel build in gasoline stocks U.S. government weekly inventory data will be released on Wednesday.

Further limiting support to prices, OPEC's president, Mohammed al-Hamli, told Reuters on Monday the cartel had no plans for an emergency meeting to address a slide in oil prices.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries has a regularly scheduled meeting in Vienna on March 15.

REUTERS CS GC1209