•Crude futures continued to fall on Wednesday, extending Tuesday's losses following a rebound in the US dollar and coming close to the $123/b mark for the first time since mid-May. With little supportive news around for the oil complex, market players are turning their attention to the release of the weekly US petroleum stock data.

•"Technically, the whole petroleum futures complex is looking terrible and [US Federal Reserve chairman Ben] Bernanke's comments yesterday did not help crude prices either by trying to support the US dollar," one London-based broker said. "It is easy to talk the dollar up but in reality the Fed actually needs to do something about the inflation risk... no measures where suggested. There is not much that can be done. Raise interest rates again in the current climate? I doubt it," the broker added.

•On Tuesday, comments by Bernanke regarding the dollar's valuation sparked a steep rally in the currency and a drop in commodities prices.

•Turning attention to the weekly US stocks data, analysts were expecting a 2.7 million barrel build in US crude stocks, while gasoline inventories are seen up by 900,000 barrels and distillates by 1.6 mil barrels.

Updated: June 4, 2008