London (Platts)--24Jul2007

Global crude futures weakened again on Tuesday as further liquidation of
long positions by speculative funds and comments from Iran's OPEC
representative pushed the energy complex lower.

     At 09:31 GMT, the September ICE Brent futures contract was down by 90
cents to $75.96/barrel, having fallen as low as $75.75/b earlier. The
September WTI contracts on both NYMEX and ICE were down by 87 cents to
$74.02/b.

     "The OPEC comments have triggered the main weakness this morning," a
London-based broker said.

     Javad Yarjani, the Iranian OPEC representative, said that the cartel will
look at fundamentals rather than price to determine its production.

     "The price is not important in the OPEC decisions. This organization, in
order to make decisions, takes into account the fundamental factors such as
the level of supply and demand, and the level of the storages. It does not
take into consideration non-fundamental factors that have nothing to do with
crude oil shortage," Shana quoted Javad Yarjani as saying.

     Yarjani also said there is a consensus between members on current output
levels, although he said that consumer concerns are taken into account.
     Meanwhile, with a lack of fresh bullish news to take prices even higher,
funds continued to liquidate some of their long positions, pushing front-month
futures to near a one-week low.

     Middle East crude futures also fell. September ICE Dubai futures were at
$70.00/b, down 86 cents, whilst the DME Oman contract dipped to $71.21/b, off
by 89 cents.

     Product futures, which have suffered heavily from the reversal of
positions, were all lower. August ICE gasoil traded at $643.25/mt, down
$3.00/mt. August RBOB futures on NYMEX fell by 2.11 cents to $2.0830/gallon
and hit an intraday low only 32 points above a three-month low. August heating
oil on NYMEX lost 1.25 cents to $2.0434/gal.

--Jean-Luc Amos, jean-luc_amos@platts.com