London (Platts)--15Jun2007

Global crude futures were down Friday with no new headlines or data to
support Thursday's products-led rally when the July NYMEX WTI futures contract
nearly hit $68/barrel, market sources said. 
     A bullish set of inventory data from the US Energy Information
Administration on Wednesday led to a surging gasoline futures prices Thursday.
This consequently dragged up the oil complex, NYMEX WTI in particular. July
crude futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange settled $1.39/b higher
at $67.65/b Thursday and the ICE Brent July contract closed up $1.02/b at
$70.96/b ahead of expiry.
     However, at 09:33 GMT Friday, the July NYMEX WTI contract had dipped 25
cents to $67.40/b, while the new front month August ICE Brent contract was
down 56 cents to $70.80/b.
     The July NYMEX RBOB contract had also retraced earlier gains, changing
hands at $2.2230/gallon, down 0.17 cents/gallon from Thursday's close.
     "It's pretty quiet so far today," said a London-based broker. "Futures
are marking time now, after the gasoline and WTI rally in the US yesterday."
     "The daily patterns this week were a carbon copy of last week (but with
slightly more strength) and as long as the pattern of last Friday is not
repeated the weekly charts will have saved the worst," oil analysts at
Petromatrix said in its daily report.
     "Technical charts will slowly start to focus on the August WTI levels
which if confirming a break of $68.00/b will set $70/b as the next upside
level. Such levels will need the support of RBOB and we would expect heating
oil levels to start to act as a capping factor which would then widen back the
premium of gasoline to heating oil."
     In product futures, the July ICE gasoil maintained above the $615/mt
level at $618.75/mt, down 25 cents from Thursday's settle, while July NYMEX
heating oil was down 1.38 cents to $2.0023/gal.
--Paul Hailey, paul_hailey@platts.com