Oil, gold prices see gains

Crude oil prices were higher on Thursday as geopolitical news was bad and new US inventories data wasn’t much better.

Just before the close of floor trade in New York, West Texas Intermediate crude for February delivery was 65 cents higher to $96.62 per barrel while Brent crude added $1.75 to $95.69 per barrel on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London.

Nymex January gasoline added 4 cents to $2.49 per gallon while February heating oil was also 4 cents hither to $2.68 per gallon and March natural gas gained 3 cents to $7.24 per million British thermal units.

Besides the news of the assassination of Pakistani opposition leader and former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, there were reports of new attacks by Turkish forces against Kurdish rebels in northern Iran.

Meanwhile, the US Energy Information Administration reported that crude oil inventories in the United States fell by 3.3 million barrels in the week ending 21 December.

Distillates stockpiles were also down, by 2.8 million barrels while gasoline inventories added 700,000 barrels, only about half of the expected gain.

Metals prices were mixed.

February gold added $2.20 to $831.70 per troy ounce and March palladium was up 5 cents to $368.35 per troy ounce, but April platinum dropped $6.40 to $1,536.60 per troy ounce and March silver fell 2 cents to $14,82 per troy ounce.

Among base metals, meanwhile, March copper dropped 4 cents to $3.13 in New York but London three-month copper added $85 to $6,880 per tonne after going as high as $7,065 per tonne earlier.

March wheat on the Chicago Board of Trade dropped 26 cents to $9.15 per bushel, it’s biggest one-day decline in two months, on news of increased output in the Pampas region of Argentina.

Soybeans were also lower on CBOT, dropping 8 cents to $12.31 per bushel, but March corn added 2.5 cents to $4.54 per bushel.

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