Commodities: Crude falls as Nigeria slashes prices to regain market share

Crude futures were lower Thursday afternoon as Nigeria slashed its oil prices in a bid to recover lost market share.

At about 15:08 BST, Nymex-priced West Texas Intermediate was down 1.71% to $50.72 a barrel, while Intercontinental Exchange-traded Brent had retreated 1.8% to $51.72 a barrel.

Nigeria National Petroleum Corp has cut its official selling prices by at least $1 a barrel for 20 of 26 grades monitored by Bloomberg.

The price drops came amid a huge glut of crude cargoes, and have been interpreted as a Nigerian bid to regain market share.

Crude futures received a boost on Wednesday after a surprise drop in US inventories, but comments by Saudi Arabia that many nations were willing to join the OPEC output cut were apparently discounted.

"If the pattern of declining inventories and rising expectations of an output cut persists, then oil could enjoy a bull run ahead of the 30 November meeting (of OPEC)," said FXTM research analyst Lukman Otunuga.

"The lingering question on the back of everyone's mind is if OPEC will really move forward with a production cut as most investors have been left empty handed on numerous occasions," he said in a statement.

Meantime, Comex-quoted metals were mixed. Gold added 0.23% to $1272.8 an ounce, with silver up 0.01% to $17.67 an ounce. Copper retreated 0.48% to 209.35 cents a pound.

Three-month industrial metals prices on London Metals Exchange were mixed; copper and aluminum tapered and zin and tin rose.

Gold's rise this week was due US dollar weakness, slightly easing expectations the US Federal Reserve would hike rates in December and US elections jitters. This attracted gold bulls.

"From a technical standpoint, although gold is bearish on the daily timeframe, the current relief rally could send prices towards the $1285 (an ounce) resistance before sellers jump back in," opined Otunuga.

Among agricultural futures, Chicago Board of Trade-quoted corn was down 0.63% to 355.25 cents a bushel, while wheat lost 0.83% to 416.75 cents a bushel.

ICE-listed cocoa shed 0.44% to $2712 a MT, while cotton No.2 fell 0.13% to 71.01 cents a pound. The price of live cattle was up 1.24% to 98.33 cents a pound.