New York  (Platts)--25May2007

July crude futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange opened 57 cents
higher at $64.75/barrel Friday with upside lead provided by the product
markets. Ongoing refinery woes in the US caused an onslaught of selling in the
crude market Thursday, but lost gasoline production pushed RBOB prices higher.

     "With the help of another significant refinery issue, we feel that odds
heavily favor a strong finish to the week with gasoline futures providing
additional upside lead," energy consultant Jim Ritterbusch said in a report.
"Yesterday, another outage at Valero's McKee, Texas facility forced a renewed
dichotomy between nearby gasoline and crude prices that snapped the July gas
crack back out by almost $3.50/b."

     The upswing in light, sweet crude futures helped stabilize the
WTI/Brent spread. The July spread was trading minus $6.07/b at 13:10 GMT.
The spread settled Thursday at minus $6.54/b. 

     June RBOB opened 1.81 cents higher at $2.3750/gal with McKee's downed
fluid catalytic cracker resulting in 30,000 b/d of lost gasoline output. June
heating oil opened unchanged at $1.9291/gal. 

		--Linda Rafield, linda_rafield@platts.com