NEW YORK (Commodity Online) : Oil and gold both ended lower for the week here following unexpected twist of situations during midday Friday that influenced these hot commodities Crude futures tumbled below $100 a barrel, wiping out three straight days of gains, on signs Saudi Arabia is raising oil output. Light, sweet crude for July delivery settled $2.64, or 2.6%, lower at $99.29 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Brent crude on the ICE futures exchange closed 79 cents, or 0.7%, lower at $118.78 a barrel. The gap between the world's two major oil benchmarks, Nymex-traded West Texas Intermediate and Europe's Brent, widened to a new record. Reports said that the world's largest oil exporter, Saudi Arabia, is planning to boost oil production by 10 million barrels a day in July. Saudi Arabia was producing 8.8 million barrels a day in May. Saudi ignored a collective OPEC decision not to hike oil output, taken at Wednesday's meeting in Vienna. Meanwhile, gold fell more than 1 percent on Friday, breaking below key support levels as the dollar extended gains against the euro, which came under pressure as concerns over euro zone debt came back to the spotlight. Spot gold fell closed at $1528.03 an ounce after hitting as low as $1,525.74 an ounce and US gold futures for August delivery fell $13.90 to $1,528.80 an ounce. However, gold has risen to new record nominal highs in British pounds at and 944.82 punds an ounce, mainly due to ECB’s rate decision.

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