Today the market will be focused on the US government inventory data to obtain a clearer picture of the damage done by Hurricane Katrina to domestic crude and product stockpiles.

Traders switched focus from a fall in crude inventories to a general surplus of oil and signs of falling demand.

Sugar is going ballistic because of the oil price. As oil prices go higher and higher, the only real alternative at present to gasoline is ethanol.

It's going to be interesting to see what demand is. If it continues to fall that's going to prevent prices going higher.

The major concern is that there is no spare capacity to make up for any drop in oil supply from Iran, a fact that the country's leaders know and which enables them to be bolder than usual.

At the start of the winter, they talked about a colder than expected winter. Now they're talking about a warmer than expected one. We're not out of the woods with the weather yet.

There's some nervousness about the hurricane, that it might slow imports, and concern that gasoline and heating oil stocks might fall more than expected.

Today focus will be on the US inventory data, with gasoline stocks expected to have fallen by 1.9 million barrels in the week to August 5 as refineries struggle to avoid breakdowns and meet demand.

Governments are saying that 5 percent of gasoline must be replaced by ethanol, which is a huge amount. Where is it going to come from?