London (Platts)--24Jan2008

Global crude futures strengthened in European morning trading on Thursday
following gains seen in US financial markets during a late rally on Wednesday,
which sent positive signals to Asian markets and the petroleum futures
complex.

Additional market direction should emerge on Thursday as the latest US
weekly petroleum stock data from the Energy Information Administration and the
American Petroleum Association is due out later today, and analysts said the
results are likely return some fundamentals into price development.

At 10:49 GMT, front-month ICE Brent futures were up $1.03 to
$87.65/barrel, with the March NYMEX WTI futures contract gaining $1 to
$87.99/b, even trading above the $88/b mark during the course of the morning.

WTI's premium to Brent also continued to narrow, to the lowest levels
since last December, currently seen at 34 cents/b. However, with US stock data
due later today, the development for crude inventory levels in Cushing,
Oklahoma--WTI's delivery point--could widen the gap again if a further decline
in crude stocks at Cushing is shown.

"This week has been crazy so far...I feel like I have been trading stocks
as the oil market followed equities so closely," a London-based petroleum
trader said.

"It will be interesting to see what happens today if we get builds in
everything [for US stats data] as expected, while the financial market could
rally this afternoon," the trader added.

Looking at expectations for the weekly US stock data in detail, analysts
surveyed by Platts on Wednesday expected a 2.6 million barrel build in US
commercial crude stocks, with refinery utilization seen down another 0.5% to
86.6%, as maintenance in the US kicked off early. For products, analysts
forecast a 900,000 barrel increase for gasoline stocks, while only distillate
stocks are seen down 1 million barrels.

"With the release of the DOE statistics, it will be the first time in
more then a week that oil traders will have the chance to focus on something
else than the Dow," analysts for Petromatrix said in a report Thursday.
Product futures prices also picked up in European morning trading, with
February ICE gasoil increasing $5.25 to $776/mt, while February NYMEX heating
oil was up 3.34 cents to $2.4565/gallon.

February NYMEX RBOB gained 2.35 cents to $2.2743/gallon.

--Verena Peternell, verena_peternell@platts.com