•Crude futures prices soared Thursday after a pipeline exporting close to 2 million b/d of crude and products from Canada to the US was shut down by an explosion. Front-month WTI on NYMEX rose by more than $4/barrel on news of the incident, taking prices back above $95/b after the sharp falls earlier in the week.

•Calgary-based pipeline operator Enbridge said it had shut its whole pipeline system to the US, comprising four separate lines carrying mainly crude and some refined products and gas liquids. The cause of the explosion, which happened on Wednesday afternoon local time, is not known.

•At 11:02 GMT, Jan NYMEX WTI traded at $94.28/b. Dec ICE Brent was up $2.27 to $92.08/b. "Interest is purely centered on the explosion this morning," said a London-based broker. "If it hadn't happened the market would have come off some more, as it was looking pretty fragile last night." "There has been a massively overexaggerated upward move after the pipeline explosion," a London-based trader said. "There is a lot of short covering going on and the market is reacting from an oversold situation yesterday."

Updated: November 29, 2007