Crude oil prices rise slightly; metals mixed

The price of crude oil ended slightly higher in New York Friday on new tensions over Iran’s nuclear enrichment program after US President Barack Obama criticized Iran for “breaking rules” in delaying notification to the International Atomic Energy Agency of a new uranium enrichment plant it is building.

The US and some other Western nations believe that Iran intends to use the uranium to build bombs, not nuclear power facilities as Iran contends.

November contracts for West Texas Intermediate crude ended the session 13 cents higher to $66.02 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, while Brent crude gained 56 cents to $65.38 on the ICE Futures Europe exchange in London, as prices resisted more gains due to an overabundance of stockpiles of crude oil, gasoline and distillates in US storage facilities.

Nymex October gasoline futures were down about 2 cents to $1.62 per gallon.

December copper was 3 cents higher to $2.74 per pound in New York trade while three-month copper added $40 to $5,990 per tonne in London after LME-monitored stockpiles dropped by 175 tonnes during the session to 340,700 tonnes and inventories followed in Shanghai were down 5.3 percent this week.

Mixed economic news from the United States, where consumer sentiment grew more than expected this month and sales of new homes were up in August, but not by as much as expected, and where durable goods orders were down by 2.4 percent last month, also affected prices for base metals, which were mixed on the session.

Lead was $14 higher to $2,185 per tonne in London, while zinc was up by $16 to $1,880 per tonne and tin gained $50 to $14,400 per tonne in addition to copper’s gains.

On the other hand, aluminium was down $25 to $1,815 per tonne while nickel dropped $200 to $16,900 per tonne.

Precious metals prices were lower on the session as December gold fell $7.50 to $991.40 per troy ounce after the dollar strengthened, while December silver was down 24 cents to $16.06 per troy ounce and January platinum dropped $24.80 to $1,288.90 per troy ounce.

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