What's Moving the Oil Markets?

 •"Crude futures traded in by now familiar patterns during the European morning session on Friday, starting slightly lower into the trading day but already showing signs of fresh strength, which kept the complex supported. Moreover, with the US dollar continuing to stay in record-low territory against other major currencies, this morning's profit-taking did not cause any real losses", sources said.

•Trading this week has been dominated by the unusual relationship between distillates and gasoline futures, which saw the April NYMEX RBOB/heating oil spread slip into unseen negative territory, reaching minus 45.55 cents at 11:08 GMT, on the back of divergent fundamentals in the gasoline and middle-distillate markets globally. "While the focus is on the dollar there has been yesterday an extra-ordinary destruction of oil economics," analysts for Petromatrix said in a report Friday.

•Market players will also be keeping an eye on the release of the February US inflation data later today, which analysts said will give further direction for the Federal Reserve's meeting next week and to the development of the US dollar.

Updated: March 14, 2008