**Inventory report delayed till 5 PM: <Oil Eases Ahead of U.S.
Inventory Data
Wednesday January 19, 4:56 am ET
LONDON (Reuters) - Oil prices fell slightly on Wednesday ahead of an expected build in U.S. crude and product inventories, but remained strong above $48 a barrel on colder weather in the northern hemisphere.
U.S. oil futures (CLc1) were down 28 cents at $48.10 a barrel after a round of profit-taking knocked the market off its peak of $49.50 on Tuesday, the highest level since Nov. 30.
London Brent crude (LCOc1) was down 34 cents at $45.05.
Prices are up 11 percent since the year started, boosted by the approach of the season's severest cold snap in the U.S. Northeast, the world's biggest heating oil market.
Temperatures in the region are expected to be as much as 15 to 25 degrees Fahrenheit below normal this week, private forecasters Meteorlogix said on Wednesday, boosting household demand for heating fuel.
Dealers fear a sustained frosty spell could strain supplies, even if stocks rose slightly last week in U.S. government data expected later than usual at 5 p.m. EST on Wednesday.
"Distillates should get in one more, smaller build before the seasonal downtrend takes hold on the back of the cold," said Tim Evans, senior energy analyst at IFR Energy Services in New York.
Inventories of distillates -- which include heating oil and diesel -- were forecast to have risen by 300,000 barrels in the week to Jan. 14, the third consecutive build, according to a Reuters survey of 12 analysts.
Crude oil and gasoline tanks, which are comfortably above last year's levels, were both seen building by 900,000 barrels.
Winter kerosene stocks in Japan -- the world's third biggest oil user -- fell nearly 12 percent in the last week as a mid-winter chill swept the north of the country, industry data showed on Wednesday.
PRICES NEAR $50, OPEC EYES $40
With oil prices again flirting with $50 a barrel and lingering supply outages around the globe, the International Energy Agency has called on the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to pump more oil.
Demand for the cartel's crude will be 500,000 barrels per day (bpd) more than expected in the first quarter due to field disruptions in North American and the North Sea, some of which are still ongoing, the IEA said.
OPEC meets on Jan. 30 to discuss whether it may need to deepen its 1-million-bpd Jan. 1 cuts ahead of the second quarter, when demand ebbs, but oil is well above the $40 target that some members recently mooted as a possible new price floor.
Iraq goes to the polls on the same day as the cartel's meeting, keeping traders on high alert for potential disruptions to its 1.5 million bpd of southern exports, which have been mostly spared the sabotage that has paralyzed northern supplies.
Elsewhere supplies were recovering, with Nigerian flows nearly back to normal and Norwegian output coming back on stream, although nearly 250,000 bpd of production from the North Sea and the U.S. Gulf of Mexico remains off line.>
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