Commodities: Disappointing EIA data sees crude prices plunge further

Crude-oil futures ducked lower on Wednesday afternoon as traders once again reacted to disappointing US inventories data from the government's Energy Information Administration (EIA).

The black liquid tanked as the EIA numbers revealed US stores fell by 1.7m barrels for the week to 9 June, versus expectations for a 2.3m barrels decline.

This came after industry data from American Petroleum Institute (API) last night showed a surprise build last week.

At 15:47 BST, Nymex-priced West Texas Intermediate crude was down 1.49% to $45.77 a barrel. Intercontinental Exchange-traded Brent fell 1.5% to $47.99 a barrel.

Ten minutes' earlier, crude had been down a little more than half a percent.

"The black gold suffered another blow last night after the API data confirmed that we have another surprise build of inventory," said Naeem Aslam at Think Markets UK.

"We do see big losses for both crude and Brent building up," he said, prior to the EIA data.

"We are trading towards the low of the day and we do think that this trend may continue unless we see that the crude inventory data has something different to show."

Heading into the double-whammy of API and EIA stores data on Tuesday, crude suffered as Opec confirmed its output rose in May on the back of higher production by Nigeria, Libya and Iraq.

Meanwhile, at about 15:35 BST, on Comex, gold was ahead 0.83% to $1279.1 an ounce. Silver added 2.61% to $17.21 an ounce. Copper was down 0.23% to 259.05 cents a pound.

Jasper Lawler at London Capital Group said a double dose of soft economic data sent the US dollar plunging and gold rallying before the Federal Reserve rate decision tonight.

"Slowing inflation and flat retail sales add to the growing sense that today’s meeting could see the last US rate rise this year," he said.

On London Metals Exchange, three-month industrial metals were mixed. Copper fell 0.95% and zinc lost 0.88%, while aluminum was flat and tin rose 1.84%.