COM: Oil ends up while gold dips in New York closing
SINGAPORE (Commodity Online) : Global oil prices continued its northern journey to finish higher for the week on Friday while gold ended lower for the first time in eight sessions.
Light sweet crude for April delivery was seen trading at $97.88 a barrel on the comex division of Nymex while Brent crude rose 78 cents to settle at $112.14 per barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.
Gold prices eased Friday after investors took to profit selling while silver prices also dropped for the second day in succession.
US gold for April delivery, the most active contract fell $6.50, or 0.5%, to end at $1,409.30 an ounce on the comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. gold advanced 1.5 per cent for the week.
Silver futures for May delivery dropped 25.7 cents, or 0.8 per cent, to $US32.923 an ounce. On Feb. 22, silver reached $US34.315, the highest since March 1980. The commodity has doubled in the past 12 months.
Palladium futures for June delivery rose $US7.90, or 1 per cent, to $US787.60 an ounce on the New York Mercantile Exchange. This week, the price fell 8.2 per cent, the most since early July.
Platinum futures for April delivery gained $US16.60, or 0.9 per cent, to $US1,803.40 an ounce. The metal fell 2.2 per cent this week.
In other Nymex trading for March contracts, heating oil added 5.23 cents to settle at $2.9455 per gallon and gasoline futures gained 3.37 cents to settle at $2.9086 per gallon. Natural gas picked up 13.3 cents to settle at $4.005 per 1,000 cubic feet.
Analysts said oil prices will continue to took advantage of the geo-political situations in North Africa and elsewhere in the Middle East as it may affect oil supplies to Europe.
They said information’s about oil fields and ports are still not verified and concerns regarding the safety of them will help oil prices to stay higher.
The Libyan rebellion has all but shut down exports from there, prompting the IEA and Saudi Arabia to announce production increase if necessary to meet the demand.
The IEA member nations have about 1.6 billion barrels in reserves. The Saudis produce about 8.5 million barrels per day and could ramp that up to 12 million or more.
