What's Moving the Oil Markets?

•Global crude futures were trading in a tight range Friday morning, amid very thin volumes, brokers said, slowing Thursday's drop in prices, on the final day prior to the public holidays.

•At 0931 GMT the February Brent futures contract changed hands at $62.58/barrel, up 12 cents from Thursday's settlement.

•Late during the Thursday trading session crude futures fell around $1/barrel in what appeared to be long liquidation ahead of the long public holidays. The crude complex fell, led by a pullback in the NYMEX RBOB contract, as well as the heating oil contract on the back of forecasts that mild weather is set to remain in the US Northeast throughout the public holiday.

•The EIA reported a 1 million barrel build in gasoline stocks in its weekly data, resulting from an increase in refiner output. The EIA also showed an unexpected build of 700,000 barrels of heating oil stocks in the US.

•Product futures were also stronger. The January ICE gasoil contract traded at $542.00/mt, up $3.00/mt. Both January RBOB and heating oil futures on NYMEX were up by 1.01 cents at $1.659/gallon and $1.715/gallon, respectively.

Updated: 12/22/07