•Global crude futures benchmarks retreated Monday from last week's record highs following the end of the four-day general strike by labor unions in Nigeria, sources said. Moreover, Shell announced on Monday morning that it plans to lift force majeure on its Nigeria Forcados loadings in July, more than a year after it was shut following an attack by militants.

•At 10:44 London time, August ICE Brent was down 86 cents to $70.32/barrel, well below the more than $72/b values seen last week. August NYMEX WTI lost 82 cents to $68.32/b. Looking eastwards, August ICE Dubai was down 74 cents to $66.26/b, while August DME Oman futures lost 52 cents to $66.38/b.

•Nigerians returned to work Monday two days after the country's two main trade unions ended a four-day general strike that had paralyzed economic and commercial activities.

•"You can see on the COT report the assault on heating oil and RBOB that was made by the funds in the last two weeks. Maybe they feel the market is reaching its top levels," the broker added. Non-commercials bought 7,370 lots of RBOB futures and options last week, leaving them long 40,798 contracts. This is the largest long position held by non commercials since the CFTC started to report data for RBOB.

Updated: June 25, 2007