London (Platts)--20Jun2007

Global crude futures traded lower Wednesday, currently ignoring
industrial action taken by Nigerian labor unions and ahead of the weekly US
inventory crude and product stock data.
     At 10:03 GMT the August ICE Brent futures contract changed hands at
$71.58/barrel, off by 26 cents. An equal fall was seen in the July NYMEX WTI
futures contract, pegged at $68.87/b. The new front-month August ICE WTI
futures contract traded 20 cents down at $69.34/b.
     Business and commercial activities in Nigeria came to a halt Wednesday as
workers began a general strike in protest against a recent increase in
gasoline prices (see story 08:58 GMT).
      While oil workers stayed away from their offices in line with the
directive by unions, instructions had not yet been issued to withdraw oil
monitors from crude export terminals. Union officials threatened that
terminals could be shut down at a later stage if the government did not meet
their demands.
     Analysts do not expect that the strike will have a major impact on prices
in the immediate future. "Despite the government concessions the unions are
going on with the planned strike in Nigeria but it will take a couple of days
before a better assessment can be made on its impact on crude oil flows,"
Petromatrix wrote in a report. 
     Nigeria exports more than 2 million b/d of oil, and the country is one of
the top five suppliers to the US.
     A more immediate price mover will come in the form of the US stock data
to be released at 14:30 GMT by the US Energy Information Administration and
American Petroleum Institute.
     Analysts surveyed by Platts are expecting a 110,000 barrel draw in
commercial crude stocks.
     "Crude oil inventories are likely to have remained unchanged, as
increased levels of imported crude became the feedstock for higher rates of
refinery runs," Jason Schenker, energy economist at Wachovia Bank, said in a
report.
     Analysts were also projecting a build of 1.1 million barrels in gasoline
stocks. Again, an increase in gasoline inventories, the main market mover for
this time of year, is predicated upon higher refinery utilization rates. The
Asian crude contracts were also lower with the August Oman futures contract on
the DME at $67.19/b, down 23 cents while August ICE Dubai futures were off 22
cents at $66.96/b.
     Products on both sides of the Atlantic were lower too, amid thin trading
ahead of the US stock data reports. July ICE gasoil fell $1.00/mt to
$625.50/mt. July heating oil on NYMEX fell 94 points to $2.0174/gallon, whilst
the RBOB contract traded at $2.2200/gal, down 146 points.
--Jean-Luc Amos, jean-luc_amos@platts.com