Commodities: Oil futures advance on speculation around informal OPEC meeting

All eyes were on the energy patch at the start of the week, after a report from the Journal indicated that the Organisation for Petroleum Exporting Countries would hold informal talks on the sidelines of an industry event in September.

Some OPEC countries, such as Ecuador, Venezuela and Kuwait wanted to make another attempt at reaching an agreement on an oil production freeze with countries from outside the cartel, such as Russia.

Russian Energy Minister Alexander Novak on Monday said he would be willing to discuss a freeze with OPEC if prices fall further, Interfax reported.

Front month Brent crude futures advanced 2.51% to $45.41 per barrel on the ICE, alongside a gain of 2.90% to $43.05 per barrel.

In parallel, heating oil futures climbed 2.07% to $1.3443 per gallon on NYMEX but RBOB gasoline futures were about flat, up by just 0.03% to $1.3767 per gallon.

Meanwhile, the spot US dollar index edged higher by 0.23% to 96.417 as the Bloomberg commodity index rose 0.51% to 84.28 as of 19:05 BST.

Precious metals prices were little changed, with December 2016 gold futures on COMEX drifting just 0.16% lower to $1,342.30 per ounce.

Silver futures on the other hand were off -0.01% to $19.82/oz..

The September 2016 copper contract on COMEX rose 0.56% to $2.1660 per pound. China´s imports of unwrought copper and semi-fabricated copper continued to slow sharply, Barclays pointed out in a research report sent to clients.

However, that was partly offset by continued strength in imports of copper ore and concentrate.

Overnight, the most heavily traded iron ore contract for September on the Dalian Commodity Exchange finished the day up by 3.4% at 503 yuan, near its loftiest mark since late August 2014.

China´s iron ore imports grew 8.3% month-on-month to 88.4 metric tonnes in July. The average daily import was 2.85mt, the highest level this year, Barclays said.

Out on the Shanghai Futures Exchange, construction steel product rebar ended the day up by 4.1% at 2,607 yuan per tonne.

Soft commodities gave back some of the previous session´s gains, with CBoT corn futures declining 0.30% to $3.3325 per bushel, while ICE traded cocoa futures gave back 0.53% to close at $2,970.00 per metric tonne.

Cotton futures slipped 0.53% to $76.33 per pound on the ICE, alonside a 0.39% dip in live cattle CME futures to $1.1508 a pound.