>CRUDE MKT EYES EQUITIES AS OPTIMISM FALTERS

London - Crude oil market is likely to closely eye fortunes of equity markets as doubts over economic recovery gather pace, say Simon Wardell at Global Insight. "Optimism and confidence may be just petering out at this stage. If stock markets have definitely hit a top in the near term we could see some knock on in the commodities," he says. "You're hearing a little more concerns about the great green shoots - they don't seem as strong as they did a few months ago." ICE August Brent -9c at $70.15/bbl, Nymex July light, sweet -25c at $70.22/bbl.

Crude drops on econ doubts, EIA data eyed

London - Crude reverses earlier gains ahead of weekly US EIA inventory data due 1430GMT Wednesday. Market expecting another round of crude stock draws, gasoline expected to build. Tuesday API reported 1.3m bbl crude draw, 2.1m bbl gasoline build. Financial markets continue to influence crude - dollar pares earlier weakness, while equity markets drop on recovery unease. "Stock markets seem to have stalled a little bit which is one of the reasons why crude prices have stopped going up. Even with crude stock draws it may be a while before we break to the upside," says Christopher Bellew at Bache. ICE August Brent -4c at $70.20/bbl, Nymex July light, sweet -27c at $70.20/bbl.

Nymex crude rebounds ahead US oil inventories data

Singapore - Crude prices in Asia rebounded Wednesday, rising above $71 a barrel as traders bet on higher prices ahead of weekly U.S. oil inventories data due later in the global day.

"The past two days, we have seen oil trade below $70 and not hold," said Mike Santander, investment adviser at Sander Capital Advisors in Seattle. "We will need oil to close below that barrier if we want it to trade lower."

At 0645 GMT, New York Mercantile Exchange sweet crude futures for delivery in July traded at $71.15 a barrel, up 68 cents in the Globex electronic session. August Brent crude on London's ICE Futures exchange rose 70 cents to $70.94 a barrel.

People are really starting to look closely at the EIA data," said Ben Westmore, commodities economist at National Australia Bank in Melbourne. "We probably need to see a more than 2 million barrel drop in stockpiles before oil prices will move upward."

The Energy Information Administration is expected to report that crude stocks fell by 1.7 million barrels last week, according to the average estimate of 12 analysts survey by Dow Jones Newswires.

Meanwhile, gains in crude prices have been correlated with the weakness of the U.S. dollar, Westmore said. The dollar weakened during Asian trading against the euro and pound, making commodities such as oil more attractive to investors.

At 0644 GMT, oil product futures were mixed.

Nymex reformulated gasoline blendstock for July, the benchmark gasoline contract, fell 75 points to 206.36 cents a gallon, while July heating oil traded at 184 cents, 150 points higher.

ICE gasoil for July changed hands at $583.00 a metric ton, down $6.00 from Tuesday's settlement.

Source: COMMODITIESCONTROL