Will Crude Move Past $75?: Oil Alert

NEW YORK (TheStreet) -- Oil prices have remained largely flat in the New York Mercantile Exchange's open-cry session Tuesday morning, as prices continue to resist pushing past the psychologically-rich $75 barrier.

Still, the front-month contract dipped in the early going, with benchmark crude for October delivery down 60 cents at $73.77 a barrel on the NYMEX. Monday, the contract added 48 cents to settle at $74.37 after earlier touching their highest levels since last fall.

But with continued weak demand and a supply glut compared to last year, eyes will be focused on data coming out Tuesday afternoon and Wednsday morning. Prices may find more direction after the American Petroleum Institute and the Energy Department release their newest weekly oil inventory totals.

According to Platts, a group of analysts expect crude oil inventories to have dropped by 2.7 million barrels last week.

In equities action, several of the oil industry's heavy-hitters were tracking in positive territory. Chevron(CVX Quote), ConocoPhillips(COP Quote) and BP(BP Quote) were up 0.6%, 0.2% and 0.6%, respectively.

American depositary shares for Royal Dutch Shell(RDS.A Quote) added 0.8%, while shares of Exxon Mobil(XOM Quote) were unchanged.

Still, a few oil stocks moved lower in the early going. Hess(HES Quote), Marathon Oil(MRO Quote) and Murphy Oil(MUR Quote) were down 0.5%, 0.3% and 0.4% each.

-- Reported by Sung Moss in New York