London (Platts)--31Mar2008

Global crude futures recovered slightly during European morning trading
Monday, stabilizing following Friday's selling spree, which was still extended
into Asian trading on Monday.

Despite bearish fundamentals for crude futures due to a recovery in Iraqi
oil production after last week's bomb attacks on a pipeline system on southern
Iraq, the persistent volatile patterns for the US dollar, combined with
Monday's April contract expiraation for NYMEX product futures could induce
some upward movement to the complex, sources said.

At 11:44 GMT, front-month ICE Brent futures were trading slightly lower,
down 20 cents from Friday's close to $103.57/b, while the May NYMEX light,
sweet crude contract declined by 58 cents to $105.06/b, with NYMEX crude's
premium over Brent narrowing further to $1.49/b.

"For now it still all comes down to the direction of the dollar and the
moment of truth will come in the second part of the week [Wednesday, when Fed
chairman Ben Bernanke testifies before Congress on the economy, then Friday
for the US employment data]. The dollar is currently at a key support line so
[there is] the risk for a $10/b [either way] correlated move on crude oil,"
analysts for Petromatrix said in a report on Monday.

On a technical note, the momentum after early last week's bull run
following the renewed Iraqi fighting seems to have calmed down, with this
week's outlook being far more bearish.

"At first sight it looks as if we are drifting a little, waiting for some
news to give us some momentum. We seem to be towards the bottom of the range.
I guess we have had some bullish news from Iraq, so my guess is that we may
try to test support levels next," a London-based broker said.

Elsewhere, trading sources were left confused today as the Dubai
Mercantile Exchange said in a notice to traders Monday that its trading
platform DME Direct had been "inadvertently closed an hour early." The news
came after widespread confusion in the trading community over why the May Oman
crude oil futures contract did not appear to be available for trading on the
critical final settlement day. It was not immediately clear exactly when DME
Direct suffered the unplanned closure.

"The main news this morning for the trading community was that the DME
expired the May contract before it was supposed to...it is incredible, we
have clients in the Far East that still have to get out of positions and it is
unclear at the moment how this will happen," a London-based broker said.

In product futures, the main focus will be on the expiry of the April
contract for NYMEX heating oil and RBOB futures later Monday. April NYMEX
heating oil, one of the main price drivers in recent sessions, hitting a new
all-time high of 3.1483/gal Thursday, was up 1.28 cents to $3.1178/gal, while
April NYMEX RBOB was slightly down 0.15 cent to $2.7155/gal.

April ICE gasoil futures remained on the upside, increasing $1 to
$963/mt.
--Verena Peternell, verena_peternell@platts.com