•Global crude futures retreated slightly from six-months highs seen on Wednesday during early trading in Europe Thursday. But support for the whole petroleum futures complex is still strong on the back of ongoing tensions surrounding Iran, which is putting a healthy risk premium on crude futures prices, analysts said.

•At 10:50 London time, the May ICE Brent futures contract was down 8 cents at $65.70/barrel, still holding above the psychologically important $65/b mark, which was surpassed on Tuesday for the first time since last September. On Thursday prices seem to be rangebound and trading appeared rather quiet despite fears of conflict between Iran, the US and the UK still being very present, analysts said. "We believe that the oil market will keep the risk premium when it soon realizes that a third US aircraft carrier is being sent to the Gulf," Olivier Jakob said in a Petromatrix report.

•The weekly US stocks data showed an unexpected draw in crude stock of 900,000 barrels. On the other hand, EIA reported a 300,000 barrel draw in gasoline stocks, much less than the 1.5 million barrel expecetd.

Updated: March 29, 2007