VIENNA, Austria - Oil prices held near $100 a barrel Thursday after hitting a record overnight as investors poured more cash into crude and other commodities as a hedge against inflation.

Oil futures on Wednesday pushed briefly past $101 a barrel after the U.S. Federal Reserve lowered its forecast for U.S. economic growth this year, convincing energy investors that the central bank will slash interest rates further.

On Thursday, light, sweet crude for April delivery opened above $100 but slipped by 42 cents to trade at $99.28 a barrel by noon European electronic trading. It was unchanged Wednesday at $99.70 a barrel.

"Investors are going into commodities for a safe haven, because they think commodities may perform better than equities and also may be hedges against inflation," said Victor Shum, an energy analyst with Purvin & Gertz in Singapore.

Lower interest rates can help the economy but tend to weaken the dollar, encouraging investors to shift funds into hard assets like gold or oil as a safeguard against inflation. After oil rallied above $100 a barrel, precious metals such as gold and silver also hit records.

The possible U.S. interest rate cut is also viewed as hopeful of bolstering a flagging U.S. economy, which would assuage fears of weakening crude demand.

"We are expecting the U.S. Federal Reserve will cut interest rates further," said David Moore, a commodity strategist with the Commonwealth Bank of Australia in Sydney. "That will help mitigate against the risks of U.S. recession, and would likely be supportive for the oil price."

The March light, sweet crude oil contract, which expired Wednesday, rose overnight as high as $101.32 a barrel, a new trading record. It settled at a record close of $100.74 a barrel.

Analysts said the rise this week in oil prices was not based on supply and demand fundamentals. The Schork Report, edited by Stephen Schork, said it expected "crude oil supply to outpace demand through the next couple of weeks," while Shum noted that in the spring season "worldwide demand is typically lower and inventories are building."

"Yet we see a strengthening of oil," he said."It's really a divergence."

Prices have surged on speculation and geopolitical factors such as the possibility that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries may cut its output at a March 5 meeting.

"What that all means is that investors could move out of oil as quickly as they moved in and so this situation could be unstable and pricing could drop as fast as it has gained," he said.

Weighing on prices Thursday were expectations that the U.S. Department of Energy would report later in the day that U.S. crude inventories rose in the seven days to Feb. 15 for the sixth straight week in a row.

"The general expectation is that you'll see another increase in U.S. crude oil inventories," Moore said. "If there was an increase that would just take a bit of the edge off oil prices."

Crude oil inventories were expected to rise 2.9 million barrels, according to a Dow Jones Newswires survey of analysts' estimates.

Gasoline inventories were seen growing 1 million barrels while stocks of distillates, which include heating oil and diesel fuel, were expected to fall 1.5 million barrels.

Heating oil and gasoline futures fell by more than a penny to $2.7394 and $2.5701 a gallon (3.8 liters.) Natural gas futures lost 1.5 cents to fetch $8.95 per 1,000 cubic feet.

Brent crude shed 43 cents, trading at $97.99 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange in London.

Source : The Associated Press