•Global crude futures drifted lower Tuesday, following the significant falls on Monday as forecasters predicted that Hurricane Dean would not pose a significant threat to US Gulf of Mexico production facilities, sources said.

•All eyes have been on the development of the first major hurricane in the US Gulf Coast in 2007 and the energy complex has started to dissociate from the equity markets, with traders looking more to fundamentals for price direction. At 1042 GMT October ICE Brent was down 7 cents to $69.78/barrel.

•"The hurricane season is far from over but given time necessary for storm development it means that the peak summer demand season will probably have escaped storm disruptions to US oil assets," Petromatrix wrote in a report. In the US Gulf of Mexico, some 41,967 b/d of crude production, representing 3.2% of the area's total oil output of 1.3 million b/d, was shut in as of Monday morning.

Updated: August 21, 2007