Commodities: Crude surges on drop in US supplies as gold rises, dollar falls

Crude-oil futures raced ahead Thursday after overnight American Petroleum Institute figures revealed a drop in US supplies of the black liquid.

At 15:37 GMT, Nymex-priced West Texas Intermediate crude was up 2% to $54.66 a barrel, with Intercontinental Exchange-traded Brent was up 2.06% to $56.99 a barrel.

This after API data showed an 884,000 barrel drop in US crude supplies last week. Investors would also be looking to US Energy Information Administration's latest figures out Thursday.

"Oil prices have headed back up after the latest US inventory showed its first weekly fall this year," said Michael Hewson, chief market analyst at CMC Markets UK.

He said in the wider scheme of things this data was but a gnat's bite, especially when set against the multi-million builds seen in the last three weeks.

"Such is the irrational exuberance of speculative money chasing oil prices higher though any shortfall is likely to be seized on as evidence that the long awaited rebalancing is starting to play out," contended Hewson.

IG market analyst Joshua Mahony observed that oil price volatility had picked this week, with comments from OPEC secretary general being followed by the API numbers.

"There could be more surprises in store for oil traders with today's release of the US EIA crude stocks data and tomorrow's rig count figure from Baker Hughes," he said.

Meantime, on Comex, gold was up 1.27% to $1249 an ounce, and silver was ahead 1.09% to $18.15 an ounce. Copper fell 1.98% to 298.15 cents a pound.

Hewon said gold prices had continued to edge higher courtesy Thursday's weaker US dollar.

On London Metals Exchange, three-month industrial metals were all lower. Tin led as it flopped 2.4%. It was followed by mild falls in zinc, copper and aluminum.

Among agriculturals, Chicago Board of Trade-listed corn was down 0.13% to 377.75 cents a bushel, and wheat was up 0.22% to 457 cents a bushel.

ICE-priced cocoa rose 0.35% to $2002 a MT, and cotton No.2 added 0.65% to 75.98 cents a pound. Live cattle rose 0.99% to 117.23 cents a pound.