Oil prices up on storm worries

Crude oil prices were higher in New York on Tuesday as a tropical depression in the Atlantic Ocean was upgraded to a tropical storm and given the name Dean as it heads toward the Caribbean and as another tropical depression was forecast to develop in the Gulf of Mexico north of the Yucatan Peninsula during the day.

Most forecasts expect Dean to strengthen to hurricane status by the end of the week and analysts worry that if it enters the Gulf of Mexico it could disrupt the oil supply.

September contracts for West Texas Intermediate crude on the New York Mercantile Exchange added 78 cents to $72.40 per barrel by the close of floor trade.

Nymex September gasoline was up 4 cents to $1.97 per gallon, while September heating oil gained 2 cents to $1.98 per gallon.

October natural gas jumped 11 cents to $7.13 per million British thermal units.

In agricultural commodities, December wheat was up 20.5 cents to $7.11 per bushel on the Chicago Board of Trade and December wheat on the Kansas Board of Trade gained 9 cents to $6.83 per bushel as demand for US wheat was seen to be increasing as some competing nations saw production decline.

Syria stopped delivery on 200,000 tons or more of wheat to Egypt in exchange for rice, while France said that its wheat production will drop by 2.5 percent due to rain damage.

Bad weather hurt wheat crops in Australia, the Ukraine, and the US in the past year as well.

December cocoa, however, was down $15 to $1,871 per metric ton on the New York Board of Trade as sterling weakened and a new report predicted that global surpluses will grow next year as good weather in July is expected to increase the cocoa crop from the Ivory Coast, even though harvests in Brazil, Cameroon, and Indonesia are expected to be lower than anticipated.

Metals prices were lower on Tuesday.

December gold dropped $1.20 to $678.70 per troy ounce in New York as September silver fell 11 cents to $12.75 per troy ounce.

October platinum was $10.10 lower to trade at $1,277 per troy ounce on demand concerns and September palladium dropped $3.45 to $354.70 per troy ounce.

Among base metals, the price of copper fell 7 cents to $3.36 per pound as its price in London dropped 1.8 percent to $7,420 per tonne.

Tin was down 8.3 percent in London to $14,100 per tonne, down from a new record high of $17,050 per tonne set last week while aluminium and nickel each 1.4 dropped percent, to $2.,458 per tonne and $27,110 per tonne respectively.

Lead fell 0.3 percent to $2,010 per tonne.

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