London (Platts)--17May2007

Global crude futures continued Wednesday's late rally as a series of
refinery glitches pushed NYMEX RBOB futures over 6 cents/gallon higher,
dragging crude futures behind them, traders said Thursday.

     Despite refinery problems being bearish for crude prices, a crude stock
draw of 1.2 million barrels from Cushing, Oklahoma added support.

     At 10:26 GMT the new front month ICE Brent futures contract for July was
pegged at $68.73/barrel, up 76 cents, while the June NYMEX WTI futures
contract traded 44 cents higher at $62.99/b. The ICE WTI futures contract
changed hands 40 cents higher at $62.95/b "It's a continuation of last night's
rally. RBOB futures jumped as the stories of refinery glitches came through
and it pulled the rest of the market with it," one trader said.

     On Wednesday, Valero shut its 130,000 b/d Houston, Texas refinery for a
week of unplanned maintenance and expects a loss of approximately 64,000 b/d
of gasoline production during the outage.

     ConocoPhillips also cut rates at its 219,700 Sweeny, Texas refinery while
conducting maintenance on a sulfur recovery unit and a waste heat boiler.

     In late trading Wednesday, BP said that the restart of the downed 55,000
b/d fluid catalytic cracker at its 160,000 b/d Toledo, Ohio refinery had been
postponed by at least a week. The unit had been idled during the last week of
April for 10-15 days of unplanned maintenance. 

     Market players also noted that Brent futures prices were moving higher as
the recent spate of attacks on Nigerian oil infrastructure "has added a
premium to Brent," and "another attack may be just around the corner," a
trader said.

     While prices eased early Wednesday as news came through of Nigerian
militants leaving Shell production facilities in the Niger Delta, paving the
way for full production of Bonny Light crude to resume by Friday, a trader
said that "the market is edgy and anything can happen at anytime there." 

     On a technical note, market players cited the $69/b level as the first
line of resistance on front-month ICE Brent futures. Trading volumes are
expected to be lower today as many European countries are on holiday for
Ascension day.

     Among product futures, June ICE gasoil futures neared $600/mt, trading at
$597/mt, up $8.50/mt from Wednesday's settle. NYMEX heating oil futures for
June were 2.1 cents higher at $1.8880/gal, recovering from a 5 cent drop
Wednesday, following the release of weekly oil inventory data from the Energy
Information Administration showing a 1 million barrel build to already-ample
distillate stocks.

     The June RBOB futures was 2.65 cents/gal higher at $2.3635/gal, after
having rallied from an intra-day low of around $2.2700/gal on Wednesday.

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