World oil prices rose on Wednesday as the market awaited a weekly snapshot of crude stockpiles in the United States -- the world's biggest energy consuming nation.
New York's main contract, light sweet crude for delivery in April gained 17 cents to 79.86 dollars a barrel.
Brent North Sea crude for April climbed nine cents to 78.27 dollars a barrel in midday London trade.
Traders were turning their attention to an upcoming stockpiles report from the US Department of Energy (DoE).
Analysts polled by Dow Jones expect the DoE report to show that US crude inventories rose by one million barrels last week and that distillate stocks declined by 700,000 barrels.
Gasoline, or petrol, reserves are forecast to have risen by 700,000 barrels, the poll results showed.
A report by the American Petroleum Institute (API) published on Tuesday showed that US crude reserves had risen by 2.67 million barrels in the past week while gasoline reserves increased 909,000 barrels.
Distillate stocks, which include heating fuel, fell 4.07 million barrels.
"I think the crude build-up is certainly bearish so inventories remain high," said Victor Shum, a Singapore-based analyst with energy consultancy Purvin and Gertz.
"The (supply and demand) fundamentals will prevent pricing from being sustainable at the 80-plus dollar level," he said.
Oil prices had closed higher on Tuesday, buoyed by a weak greenback which makes dollar-priced crude cheaper for holders of foreign currencies, pushing up demand, traders said.
Elsewhere on Wednesday, Anglo-Dutch oil group Shell reported an attack on its flowstation in southern Nigeria, but said the facility was not producing at the time of the incident.
"We confirm explosive damage to a part of Kokori flowstation but the facility was unmanned and has not been producing," Shell's spokesman Precious Okolobo said in a message to AFP.
Local media reported that a previously unknown group calling itself "the Peoples Patriotic Revolutionary Force" had claimed responsibility for the attack on Tuesday.
Oil is Nigeria's economic mainstay, raking in some 95 percent of export earnings and accounting for about 85 percent of budget requirements for the OPEC member country.
