April 26 (Reuters) - ICE cotton futures were nearly unchanged in light trading on Wednesday as traders awaited direction from a weekly federal report on U.S. export sales.

"We had a large amount of Trade at Settlement (TAS) orders. That sort of supported the market all day. Other than that it was just a very quiet day," said Louis Barbera, a broker at ICAP Cotton.

The July cotton contract on ICE Futures U.S. settled up 0.04 percent at 79.39 cents per lb, after touching the highest since March 16 at 79.74 earlier in the session.

"The market is waiting to see sales tomorrow morning before it will move again," said Rogers Varner, president of Varner Brokerage in Cleveland, Mississippi.

The weekly U.S. export sales data will be released by the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday.

* The July cotton contract on ICE Futures U.S. settled up 0.03 cent, or 0.04 percent, at 79.39 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 78.71 and 79.74 cents a lb.
* Total futures market volume rose by 3,243 to 24,020 lots.
* Data showed total open interest rose 2,744 contracts to 247,883 in the previous session.

(Reporting by Apeksha Nair and Karen Rodrigues in Bengaluru; Editing by Steve Orlofsky)