Precious metals prices decline on session

Precious metals were lower dropped on Friday as investors took profits, but political tensions heated up by Iran’s capture of 15 British Navy personnel and accompanying rises in oil prices kept the price of gold from falling too far. April gold on the COMEX dropped $6.90, to $657.30 per troy ounce. During the day it traded in the range between $655.20 and $665.30 during the day.

May silver fell a bit more than 25 cents to $13.227 per troy ounce. April platinum was $7.60 lower to $1,233.40 per troy ounce, while June palladium was down $1.75 to $359.50 per troy ounce.

At midday in London, copper traded at $6,800 per tonne. London Metal Exchange copper inventories dropped 4,125 tonnes during the session. Meanwhile, Dresdner Kleinwort has predicted that the price of copper will go as high as $7,600 per tonne this year, mainly due to higher demand in China. Nickel inventories in LME registered warehouses gained a bit, adding 618 tonnes on the day, and the metal traded at $44,450 at mid-session.

Crude oil prices were higher on Friday after the incident in the Persian Gulf. While it spurred fears that oil supplies could be disrupted, at least one analyst said that although the seizure points out the fragility of the oil market in the face of political developments, the event in itself likely poses little threat to oil production in the region because Iran needs to keep oil production going in order to keep its oil income flowing.

West Texas Intermediate crude May contracts added 59 cents to $62.28 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The day’s advance brought the week’s gain to 4.5 percent over last Friday’s close. Nymex April gasoline was also higher , adding 4.08 cents to $1.9983 per gallon for a total gain of 4.8 percent on the week.. Nymex April heating oil, on the other hand, was 0.69 cents lower to $1.7111 per gallon, still a gain of 1.3 percent over the week. Natural gas was also up, by 5 percent, this week but on Friday prices fell by 5.1 cents to $7.269 per million British thermal units.

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