Commodities: Crude charges north on hopes of OPEC output cut

Crude oil futures are charging more than 3% higher on Tuesday afternoon amid renewed hopes and some jawboning on whether cartel OPEC will cut output when it meets later this month, helping to alleviate the chronic global supply glut.

At about 15:08 GMT, Nymex-listed West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude was up 3.55% to $44.86 a barrel, while Brent Intercontinental Exchange-traded Brent gained 3.47% to $45.97 a barrel.

"Rumours circulate that OPEC is making another push to deliver the output cut agreed in Algiers back in September, said Nicholas Hyett at Hargreaves Lansdown.

eToro's Mati Greenspan said oil futures appeared to be trading completely independently of the US election, which Republican Donald Trump won. OPEC is due to meet in Vienna in two weeks.

"It seems that traders are more concerned with what OPEC is going to do than a yellow haired man," Greenspan said.

"The overall range (of WTI) since April is $42.50 to $50 per barrel, with a $2.50 buffer on either side," Greenspan added.

"It seems every time we get low OPEC comes close to a deal and every time we get high, those talks seem to dissolve."

Accendo Markets' Mike van Dulken and Henry Croft noted that a push from Algeria, Qatar and Venezuela to settle disagreements between heavyweight producers Saudi Arabia, Iran and Iraq has helped investor confidence.

"However, will this short term-boon be quickly overshadowed by renewed conflict between the notoriously argumentative cartel?" they pondered.

Meantime, on Comex, gold was up 0.37% to $1226.2 an ounce, while silver added 0.72% to $17.02 an ounce and copper retreated 1.63% to 248 cents a pound.

On London Metals Exchange, three-month industrial metals were mixed. Copper was up a jot and aluminum down a bit.

But there were big moves were in zinc and tin. Zinc rose 5.46% to $2607 a MT and tin was down 2.66% to $20,830 a MT

Turning to agricultural futures, Chicago Board of Trade-listed corn popped up 0.65% to 347.5 cents a bushel and wheat added 0.76% to 397 cents a bushel.

ICE-priced cocoa shed 1.12% to $2391 a MT and cotton No.2 accelerated 0.98% to 69.99 cents a pound. Live cattle was down 0.33% to 106.18 cents a pound.