London (Platts)--18Sep2009/737 am EDT/1137 GMT

Global crude futures traded lower through Friday mornings European session. Continued concerns over product stock levels were putting some downward pressure on the crude complex, sources said.

Moreover, a strengthening dollar was also weighing on the markets, a London based broker said. "It's dollar related." At 11:00 GMT, the November ICE Brent contract traded at $70.81/barrel, a $0.74 fall. The October NYMEX crude contract was also trading lower at $71.71/b, $0.76 lower than Thursday's close. The ICE dollar index meanwhile added 0.232 points to the overnight settle, trading at 76.420 points.

Friday's oil prices were expected to trade in "a sideways-to-lower trend in today's trade, with developing negative factors offering potential pressure," according to Tom Pawlicki of MF global.

"A lack of economic announcements may cause some traders to exit [close out their positions] early for an extended weekend," he added.

The expectation of lower values in the crude complex through Friday was echoed by another market analyst.

"Given the overnight action on the Shanghai Index and on the Dollar Index, the lack of macro data to be issued today, the poor 3-2-1 refinery cracks, our daily bias can only be that WTI starts to drift back towards the lower part of the range," said Olivier Jakob of Petromatrix.

--Daniel Colover, daniel_colover@platts.com