•Crude futures strengthened on Thursday following gains seen in US financial markets during a late rally on Wednesday, which sent positive signals to the petroleum futures complex. Further market direction should emerge on Thursday as US weekly petroleum stock data from the EIA and API is due out later today.

•"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.

• In detail, analysts surveyed by Platts expected a 2.6 mil barrel build in US crude stocks, while gasoline stocks are seen up 900,000 barrel. 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.

Updated: January 24, 2008