•Crude futures moved higher on Friday, regaining some ground that was lost during Thursday's massive selloff, which took place on the back of a weakening at the front-end curves due to falling interest rates and building US crude stocks at Cushing, Oklahoma, WTI's delivery point, sources said. On Friday, some upward momentum returned to the market on healthier-looking technicals and some fresh bullish fundamental news following the release of the latest Monthly Oil Market Report, published by the IEA.

•"Some of the buybacks this morning were triggered by upside stops going off and it looks like funds money still keeps flowing into commodities," a London-based broker said. The Jan/Feb spread for WTI moved further into contango, seen at minus 23 cents/b at the time of writing. "Regarding the Brent front-month structure, anything could happen today as it is expiry day for the January contract...I think that the structure is a buy," the broker added.

•Looking its latest monthly report, the IEA raised its estimates of world oil demand for 2008, despite signs that high prices are hitting consumption in developed countries. It increased its estimate of world oil demand in 2008 to 87.8 million b/d, up 110,000 b/d from its previous projection.

Updated: December 14, 2007