•Global crude futures were stronger Friday during the European morning trading session, regaining losses incurred after a bearish set of US inventory data on Thursday.

•"The open interest in WTI is still quite high ahead of expiry," said a London-based trader. "People are looking to cover their shorts," he said, explaining why front month WTI was markedly up despite Thursday's fall in prices.

•"There is Brent and WTI futures contract expiry this week, as well as options expiry and US oil data today--this is a big week," said a London-based trader. "The December expiry will have a lot of financial engineering around it as it is year-end, especially the banks."

•"The flat price direction should remain dominated today by the management of the expiring contract," said Petromatrix analysts. "With the strong backwardation, WTI will have to converge higher for the technical momentum on the continuation charts to be maintained."

Updated: November 16, 2007