Commodities: Crude prices ease as sceptics make presence felt

Crude-oil futures are ticking mildly lower on Monday afternoon as those traders sceptical about recent production deals and expecting a rise in US production made their presence known in the market.

At about 15:21 GMT, Nymex-quoted West Texas Intermediate crude was down 0.15% to $51.82 a barrel, with Intercontinental Exchange-priced Brent down 0.45% to $54.96 a barrel.

"The surprisingly comprehensive agreement from a whole host of oil producers means there should be little reason to see the crude prices come off for now," said IG's Joshua Mahony.

"However, the usual difficulty of actually implementing any such deal, coupled with the expectation of a rise in US production, means gains are likely to be tempered by the sceptics in the markets," the market analyst at IG said.

He noted that Friday's US rig count rise represented the seventh consecutive increase.

"With rising crude prices likely to drive yet more investment in the US, it seems just a matter of time until we see market share gobbled up by the hungry shale producers."

OANDA senior market analyst Craig Erlam noted WTI and Brent were running into a little resistance on Monday after Friday's gains.

A failure to break through $52.50 in WTI would make $50 a very interesting level to the downside, Erlam said in a statement.

He noted that a break of the $50 level could "trigger a move back towards $45.50 in the coming weeks".

Meantime, on Comex, gold was up 0.33% to $1141.20 an ounce, while silver fell 0.77% to $16.09 an ounce and copper dropped 2.65% to 249.65 cents a pound.

"The rising prospects of higher US rates in 2017 coupled with a strengthening Dollar could be a recipe for disaster for Gold which is zero yielding," said FXTM research analyst Lukman Otunuga.

"This metal is heavily pressured on the daily timeframe as there have been consistently lower lows and lower highs. Sellers may exploit the current technical bounce towards $1155 to send Gold back low tower towards $1115."

Among the London Metals Exchange-listed three-month industrial metals, copper lost 1.68% to $96.50 a MT, aluminum fell 1.07% to $1717.00 a MT and zinc eased 3.12% to $2730 a MT. Tin was flat at $21,230 a MT.

Among agriculturals, Chicago Board of Trade-priced corn was down 0.49% to 354.50 cents a bushel, with wheat down 0.06% to 409.00 cents a bushel.

ICE-quoted cocoa rose 2.28% to $2289 a MT, and cotton No.2 eased 1.14% to 70.22 cents a pound. Live cattle fell 0.37% to 114.88 cents a pound.