•A brief upsurge in prices before Monday's settlement saw front-month ICE Brent trade at a premium to NYMEX WTI for the first time since August 23, and this widened further Tuesday to 91 cents, the highest since late July. "OPEC headline trading will continue to dominate today and into tomorrow," analysts at Petromatrix wrote in a report. OPEC is meeting in Abu Dhabi to discuss whether to increase production, but sentiment is that they could resist pressure for a hike after seeing prices fall so dramatically in the past week.

•With crude prices dropping, the market has seen an inversion of the WTI-Brent spread, with ICE Brent trading at a premium to WTI. The Brent market has derived some support from a reduction in the December North Sea loading program, with four 600,000 barrel cargoes dropped from the December North Sea program, market sources said Monday. The program originally consisted of 20.4 million barrels but now stands at 18 million barrels.

•Crude futures weakened Tuesday, continuing the near $10/barrel slide seen in the last week as market players looked for direction from OPEC's meeting in Abu Dhabi. At 11:04 GMT, Jan ICE Brent traded at $89.51/barrel, down 29 cents and NYMEX WTI was 71 cents lower at $88.60/b.

Updated: December 4, 2007