Oil hovers near 3-month high on trade optimism, supply cuts

* U.S.-China 'Phase One' deal done - White House adviser
Kudlow
* JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs revise oil price forecasts
upwards
* U.S. crude stocks likely dipped last week - Reuters poll
* Coming up: API inventory data at 2130 GMT

By Jessica Jaganathan
SINGAPORE, Dec 17 (Reuters) - Oil prices trickled a fraction
lower on Tuesday but remained near a three-month high as
investors kept the faith with hopes that a fully fledged
U.S.-China trade deal is in the pipeline and set to stoke oil
demand in the world's biggest economies.
Brent crude oil futures LCOc1 had slipped by three cents
to $65.31 a barrel by 0122 GMT, while West Texas Intermediate
crude CLc1 was down 4 cents to $60.17 a barrel.
Under a partial trade agreement announced last week,
Washington will reduce some tariffs on Chinese imports in
exchange for Chinese purchases of agricultural, manufactured and
energy products increasing by about $200 billion over the next
two years.
"While the partial trade deal leaves most of the tariffs in
place, it marks a turning point in the dispute which will
eventually lead to fully fledged agreement," analysts from ANZ
Bank said in a note on Tuesday.
The so-called 'Phase One' trade deal between both countries
has been "absolutely completed", Larry Kudlow, a top White House
adviser said on Monday, adding that U.S. exports to China will
double under the agreement. The agreement is yet to be signed and several Chinese
officials told Reuters the wording of the agreement remained a
delicate issue, with care was needed to ensure expressions used
in text did not re-escalate tensions and deepen differences.
JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs have revised their oil price
forecasts for the next year upwards, with an OPEC-led agreement
to curb output further dovetailing with the improving trade
outlook between the U.S. and China. Lower supply next year due to a planned cut by the
Organization of the Petroleum of Exporting Countries (OPEC) and
associated producers like Russia - a grouping known as 'OPEC+' -
and stronger economic growth expected because of the improved
trade outlook between United States and China will combine to
tighten the oil supply-demand balance next year, analysts from
JP Morgan said.
Also supporting prices, a preliminary Reuters poll ahead of
reports from the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the
Energy Information Administration (EIA) showed expectations that
U.S. crude oil inventories likely fell last week.
Still, U.S. oil output from seven major shale formations is
expected to rise about 29,000 barrels per day (bpd) in January
to a record 9.14 million bpd, the EIA said in a monthly forecast
on Monday.