•Crude futures moved higher Thursday, in a continuation of the rally seen late Wednesday on the back of bullish US crude and product stock data while geopolitical and storm concerns continue to provide support, traders said. "It's a continuation of the movement after the release of the US stats," a trader said. "We've now broken out of the trading range we've seen over the past few weeks and there seem to be some good bullish factors around both fundamental and technical," they added.

•Recently, crude prices found themselves stuck within a trading range with front-month NYMEX WTI mainly bouncing between $70 and $72. However, Wednesday's surge in prices have shifted technical levels and some analysts now believe the next significant resistance level on NYMEX WTI will be the $75/b level.

Updated: August 30, 2007