Commodities: Agriculture futures sag, Brent reverse early losses

Commodities were mostly lower at the start of the week, following the acrimonious end to the G-7 summit at the weekend that saw the US unexpectedly back-out of a joint communique in which the rest of the assembled economic powers committed to fighting against protectionism.

Agricultural futures were weakest, with the July 2018 CBoT corn contract erasing 2.78% to change hands at $3.6725 a bushel as of 1957 BST, while CME live cattle futures were down by 1.51% to $1.0418/lb..

Similarly-dated wheat was also lower, losing 1.06% to end at $5.1450 per bushel.

Crude oil futures were lower throughout most of the session after Bloomberg reported that Russia was pumping above the levels assigned to it under major oil producers' November 2016 output cut deal.

However, by late in the afternoon they were flat at $76.45 a barrel on the ICE.

According to an official cited by the newswire, during the first week of June Moscow was pumping at a pace of 11.09m barrels a day, versus the 10.95m b/d limit agreed with the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

The above was especially noteworthy coming as it did ahead of the 22-23 June meeting of the cartel.

Helping oil to reverse early losses was news of a crack in one of Nigeria's main pipelines for exports and that Venezuela had joined Tehran in calling for a unified front against US sanctions.

Three-month LME copper futures rose from their closing level of $6,849 per metric tonne on Friday to finish at $7,255 per tonne, even after workers at BHP Billiton's Spence mine in Chile voted in favour of accepting the miner's collective contract, boosting hopes for a quick resolution at the Escondida mine.