Commodities: Oil adds to losses ahead of OPEC technical meeting
Updated : 18:50
The commodities complex found a small bid courtesy of a slight retreat in the greenback and against a backdrop of relatively stable risk sentiment
Three-month copper futures traded on the LME closed 0.3% higher to reach $5,215 per metric tonne.
Front month West Texas crude futures slipped 0.33% to trade at $48.46 by the closing bell. Futures registered a sharp decline on Monday on the heels of data that revealed Saudi stockpiles were at a record.
Ahead of OPEC’s technical meeting on Wednesday – at which no change in production was expected – traders picked up on a Bloomberg story highlighting how the cartel’s members were busy undercutting each others’ prices when selling to Asia.
Kuwait was exporting to the Far East a record 65 cents cheaper than its neighbour to the south, Saudi Arabia.
Agricultural futures were uniformly higher, led by a 1% gain in LIFFE traded cocoa futures, which finished at £2,177 per metric tonne.
Corn futures on the Chicago Board of Trade were to be seen up by 0.4% to $3.75 per bushel.
As of 17:29 BST the Bloomberg spot US dollar index was drifting 0.12% lower to 94.81.