By Brian Baskin Of DOW JONES NEWSWIRES NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--Crude futures rose Tuesday as details of Dubai World's plans to restructure its debt lured investors out of the dollar and back into the oil market. Light, sweet crude for January delivery recently traded $1.20, or 1.6%, higher at $78.48 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude on the ICE futures exchange traded $1.11 higher at $79.58 a barrel. Dubai World, the state-owned fund, had said last week it needed to delay payments on part of its $60 billion in debt, causing a stampede out of the oil market and into the dollar, typically used as a safe-haven asset when economic troubles appear to threaten commodity demand. Those flows have reversed as Dubai World's situation stabilized, with the dollar approaching an new low for the year at $1.5076 to the euro on Tuesday, from $1.4970 earlier in the day. A weak dollar has kept oil close to $80 a barrel recently, but crude futures have only briefly been able to top that price, even as the U.S. currency plumbed new lows for the year. But ample global crude supplies are preventing a move above that price. "Oil definitely has trouble right now with $80," said Peter Beutel, president of the trading advisory firm Cameron Hanover. "The dollar and equities, which have been the big stories for 2009 ... seem to be losing some of their grip." High inventories blunt the impact of supply disruptions, as seen by the market's muted reaction to the hijacking of a tanker carrying Saudi crudde by Somali pirates on Sunday. The oil was destined for the U.S., but with inventories there 17 million barrels higher than they were a year ago, the crude won't be missed immediately. "The cost (of piracy) in itself is unlikely to be high enough to make a very visible impact on global crude prices given the current supply and demand balance," though higher security costs for shippers will eventually be passed on to oil producers and refiners, wrote analysts with IHS Global Insight. Iran's capture of a yacht carrying five U.K. citizens provided a bigger boost to crude on Monday, as escalating tensions could someday threaten tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, a key oil shipping lane off Iran's coast. Oil supplies look unlikely to drop significantly before the end of the year. Members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries have gradually inched up production this year. OPEC agreed to cut production by 4.2 million barrels a day in 2008, but compliance slipped to 58% in November, according to JBC Energy, a consultancy in Vienna. Qatar Oil Minister Abdulla bin Hamad Al Attiyah said Tuesday that "there will be no action, no change" at OPEC's next meeting later thsi month, given the "fragile" state of global economic growth. U.S. inventories are seen having risen 900,000 barrels last week, according to a Dow Jones survey of analysts taken ahead of Wednesday's release of government data. Gasoline stockpiles are also expected to have grown by 400,000 barrels, while distillate stocks, including heating oil and diesel, are forecasted to have dropped 600,000 barrels. Similar data is due out Tuesday afternoon from the American Petroleum Institute, an industry group. Front-month January reformulated gasoline blendstock, or RBOB, recently traded 3.25 cents, or 1.6%, higher at $2.0440 a gallon. January heating oil traded 3.59 cents, or 1.8%, higher at $2.0838 a gallon. The December gasoline contract expired Monday at $2.0008 a gallon, while heating oil expired at $2.0181 a gallon. -By Brian Baskin, Dow Jones Newswires; 212-416-2453; brian.baskin@dowjones.com. (Tahani Karrar-Lewsley in Dubai contributed to this article)

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