London (Platts)--11Jul2007

Crude futures fell slightly Wednesday morning European time as market
players awaited the US crude and product storage data to be released at 14:30
GMT.

     Weakness came in the form of a lower NYMEX RBOB futures contract in
expectation of builds in US gasoline stocks.

     At 09:23 GMT the August ICE Brent futures contract changed hands at
$76.04/barrel, down 36 cents. The August NYMEX WTI contract fell 35 cents to
$72.46/b and the ICE WTI contract for the same month weakened by 24 cents to
$72.45/b.

     "NYMEX RBOB is almost 2 cents down and crude is falling a little with
it," a London-based broker said. "All because people are expecting builds in
gasoline stocks. Otherwise it's pretty quiet out there.," Weekly US oil
inventory data due to be released Wednesday by the US Energy Information
Administration and American Petroleum Institute are expected to show an
increase in gasoline stocks of 1.8 million barrels.

     "As refiners maximize gasoline yields in their scramble to meet driving
demand, distillate inventories no longer look as comfortable as they once did:
stocks have not shown much of a seasonal build and their surplus average
levels has shrunk," Antoine Halff, energy analyst at FIMAT, said in a report.

     The weakness shown in the crude futures on Wednesday may be slightly
negated by the fact that there is a projection of an 850,000 barrel draw in
commercial crude stocks, analysts surveyed by Platts said Tuesday.

     The draw in crude stocks is predicated upon another increase in refinery
utilization. Refinery utilization has increased 2.4 percentage points to 90%
in the past two weeks, and is expected by analysts to edge up another 0.4 of a
point to 90.4%.

     Recent high prices with both Brent and WTI hitting new 2007 highs, have
come, partly, on the back of an increase in speculative fund positions,
analysts said.

     "The speculative funds have managed to save the positive momentum
yesterday and they should try to keep it again today," a report by Petromatrix
said as front-month ICE Brent set a new 11-month high.

     Middle East crude futures were also lower. The September ICE Dubai
contract fell 45 cents to $70.15/b whilst the DME Oman contract for the same
month was 61 cents lower at $70.57/b.

     Product futures were mainly quiet. July ICE gasoil was down $2.25/mt, at
$651.00/mt, with some market players expressing surprise as to the lack of
activity on the contracts ahead of the July contracts expiry on Thursday at
12:00 London time (12:00 GMT).

     July NYMEX RBOB futures were 1.91 cents lower at $2.3503/gallon, losing
most of Tuesday's gains. the heating oil contract on NYMEX fell 76 points to
$2.1162/gal.

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