By Arpan Mukherjee 
 

Crude-oil futures were mixed in the Asian session Thursday, with traders cautious ahead of a long Easter holiday weekend and a meeting later in the day between the West and Russia over rising tensions in Ukraine.

On the New York Mercantile Exchange light, sweet crude futures for delivery in May traded at $104.14 a barrel at 0515 GMT, up $0.28 in the Globex electronic session. June Brent crude on London's ICE Futures exchange fell $0.09 to $109.51 a barrel.

The European Union, the U.S., Russia and Ukraine will meet in Geneva on Thursday in an effort to de-escalate tensions in Ukraine. Western diplomats on Wednesday played down hopes of a major breakthrough at the talks.

"However, if the bar has been set low enough in terms of expectations, then there is some chance that the market will retreat on even very minor progress, such as an agreement to meet again," Citigroup said in a report.

The West has accused Russia of supporting pro-Russia groups, which have taken control of parts of eastern Ukraine. Ukraine's military operation against the separatists meanwhile hit obstacles as activists held buildings in as many as 10 cities close to the Russian border.

Crude-oil prices remain elevated due to the Ukraine crisis though they have fallen from earlier highs of this month.

Based on technical analysis, June Brent contract is "relatively overbought," Citigroup said, adding that if the contract falls below $108.27 a barrel, then the "market could flush even lower."

Nymex crude continued to edge higher despite data showing on Wednesday that U.S. weekly crude stockpiles recorded the biggest one-week increase in 13 years.

Crude-oil stockpiles rose by 10 million barrels last week to 394.1 million barrels, U.S. Energy Information Administration data showed. A Wall Street Journal poll of analysts had forecast stocks to rise by 1.5 million barrels on week.

In addition to the geopolitical tensions in Ukraine, upbeat economic data and outages among Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries is helping to underpin prices, Tan Chee Tat, investment analyst at Phillip Futures, said in a report.

OPEC, which supplies more than a third of the oil consumed globally each day, said Thursday that its production in March was 400,000 barrels a day below its agreed collective ceiling of 30 million barrels a day.

The Brent-WTI spread is currently at $5.37 a barrel.

Oil trading advisory firm Ritterbusch & Associates expects the Brent-WTI spread to fall toward $5 a barrel, but says that "a return to this region will be delayed by the huge U.S. crude supply build."

Nymex reformulated gasoline blendstock for May--the benchmark gasoline contract--fell 30 points to $3.0375 a gallon while May heating oil traded at $3.0091--15 points lower.

ICE gasoil for May changed hands at $923.75 a metric ton--down $1.50 from Wednesday's settlement.

Write to Arpan Mukherjee at arpan.mukherjee@wsj.com