High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b94e5ca6-ef32-11e0-918b-00144feab49a.html#ixzz1ZvIXRaTC Crude oil prices were buoyed by an unexpected fall in weekly US oil inventory figures, suggesting stronger than expected demand. Compared to expectations that oil stocks would rise about 800,000 barrels, figures released by the US Energy Information Administration showed that the level had fallen 4.7m barrels. High quality global journalism requires investment. Please share this article with others using the link below, do not cut & paste the article. See our Ts&Cs and Copyright Policy for more detail. Email ftsales.support@ft.com to buy additional rights. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/b94e5ca6-ef32-11e0-918b-00144feab49a.html#ixzz1ZvIYFnoo Crude oil prices, which had risen in tandem with equities on hopes of a European support plan for the region’s banks extended their gains in European afternoon trading. November ICE Brent, which fell below the $100 support level on Tuesday, rose $2.33 a barrel to $102.17, and November Nymex West Texas Intermediate added $2.76 a barrel to $78..43. Industrial metals turned lower on profit taking with copper for three month delivery on the London Metal Exchange losing 0.2 per cent to $6,791.75 a tonne. Aluminium fell 0.6 per cent to $2,160 a tonne for three-month delivery on the LME, while nickel declined 1.1 per cent to $18,400. Some metal executives believe that with the average cost of production for some of the high cost nickel producers at about $18,000 to $19,000 a tonne, a continued fluctuation of the metal at these levels could lead to cuts in production. The industrial metal prices may be playing catch up to mining stocks, which have been heavily sold off in the past few weeks. Miners, however, found support on Wednesday, thanks to receding fears of a global recession. BHP Billiton, the largest miner, rallied 6.4 per cent to £17.74, Rio Tinto added 6.5 per cent to £28.88, while Xstrata jumped 7 per cent to 818p. Glencore, the trading house, added 3.5 per cent to 411.05p. Gold weakened on volatile trading. After a strong start in the beginning of the week, bullion fluctuated in New York trading on Tuesday, after a Financial Times report revealing suffering from the effects of the sovereign debt crisis brought it and equities up sharply off session-lows. The yellow metal, which fell below the $1,600 support level in early European trading on Wednesday, managed to cut its losses, trading down 0.5 per cent at $1,612.60 a troy ounce. Its volatility – moving with so-called “risk assets” such as equities and industrial metals one day, decoupling from them the next – is making commentary and analysis difficult for market participants following trading in precious metals. Edel Tully, precious metals strategist at UBS, predicted that the volatile price movements were likely to continue. “Indeed, yesterday’s moves highlight the difficulty of making sense of the gold market in the current shaky environment,” she wrote in her daily note.

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