London (Platts)--6Oct2009/645 am EDT/1045 GMT

Global crude futures were higher during morning trading as a weaker dollar and firmer equity markets help support crude benchmarks, sources said.

"A stronger dollar, firmer equity markets and the general ebb and flow of crude buying and selling has pushed the market higher," a market source said.

At 10:25 GMT, front month ICE Brent traded at $68.80/barrel, a $0.76 rise. NYMEX WTI was also trading higher at $71.16/b, a $0.75 rise. The WTI-Brent spread traded at $2.36/b. In the currency markets, the sell-off of the US dollar continued, with the ICE Dollar Index losing 0.311 points from Monday's settle at 76.331 index points.

"However, [ICE Brent is] still in the $64-$70/b range, with no signs of moving out of that range. I can't see the market going above $70/b with such a poor economic backdrop," the source added.

At time of writing, the contango structure on the ICE Brent futures curve was trading at minus $0.79/b between the first and second months.

The structure of the NYMEX WTI curve, however showed a much flatter structure at minus $0.18/b between the first and second months.

"The front contango on WTI is narrowing significantly and is now very close to a flat structure. This could force more destocking in Cushing [Oklahoma; the NYMEX delivery point] and in the WTI-related crude oil that had been sitting afloat off the US Gulf," energy analyst Olivier Jakob said in a Petromatrix report.

Market attention will turn to the weekly US inventory data published by the American Petroleum Institute later today.

--George Johnson, george_johnson@platts.com