What's Moving the Oil Markets?

•Crude futures were stable on Thursday, recovering slightly from Wednesday's massive selling spree which saw front-month crude futures trading at their lowest levels since mid-April on the back of a bearish set of US petroleum statistics and a lack of fresh bullish headlines, sources said.

•"For a change, energy markets are now devoid of any bullish headlines," energy analyst Ed Meir said in a report Thursday. "The Grangemouth strike is now behind us, while the strike at the Nigerian/Exxon work action is suspended for now... All this leaves the markets relatively free to focus again on the plight of the greenback."

•During Wednesday's session, both contracts fell by around $3.50/b in intra-day trading, spurred by bearish weekly US stats data which showed a larger-than-expected build in crude stocks of 3.8 mil barrels, according to the EIA. Distillates stocks were also up by 1.1 mil barrels.

Updated: May 1, 2008