•Global crude futures stabilized in Friday morning trading in Europe time, after Thursday's volatile session. But ICE Brent futures, in particular, seemed to be struggling to continue the upward move, as news that production in the North Sea following a heavy storm restarted Friday. At 11:04 GMT, Dec ICE Brent was stable, up 2 cents to $92.81/barrel, while Dec NYMEX WTI improved 37 cents to $95.83/b.

•Supply worries at the North Sea oil and gas production fields seemed to have eased as well, as production has restarted at Norwegian StatoilHydro's Visund field following Thursday's announcement that production was stopped due to severe weather conditions, a source at the company said Friday.

•Despite easing supply worries, given the current volatile structure of the market, analysts still regard hitting the $100/b mark a viable option in the next few trading days. "The 100 $/b WTI target is still within a two-day reach under current daily volatility. Today's closing will be crucial to assess if the 100 $/b Call Options can still remain a trigger objective for Tuesday. The main capping factor will remain the resistance induced by the weakness of the global equity markets," Petromatrix said in a report Friday.

Updated: November 9, 2007