New York (Platts)--27Dec2007

February crude futures on NYMEX opened 73 cents higher at $96.65/barrel
Thursday as the US dollar extended a two-week slide on weak durable goods and
the assassination of Pakistani opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.

Durable goods were reported up 0.1%, less than the 1.2% increase
economists at Standard and Poor's -- like Platts part of the McGraw-Hill
Companies -- had projected.

The US Dollar Index dropped 35 points to 76.802, erasing two weeks of
gains.

Attention is likely to rapidly turn to this week's US oil data due out at
15:30 GMT. Analysts polled by Platts were projecting a 2.7 million barrel draw
in US commercial crude stocks, a 2 million barrel increase in gasoline and a
1.2 million barrel drop in middle distillates.

"We feel that the shift in crude supply at Cushing, Oklahoma will provide
the primary feature to today's EIA statistics," energy consultant Jim
Ritterbusch said in a report. "[A] stock build at Cushing of more than 1
million barrels would go a long way in weakening the curve, possibly back to
contango in the process of deterring buying interest from funds."

January heating oil opened 1.88 cents higher at $2.66/gallon and February
RBOB opened 1.43 cents higher at $2.4920/gal.

--Linda Rafield, linda_rafield@platts.com