Commodities: Oil futures dip after DoE inventory data

Commodity prices were range-bound ahead of the US central bank´s upcoming policy decision scheduled for later in the day.

Bloomberg´s commodity index was off by just 0.04% to 87.89 as the US dollar spot index slipped 0.26% to 100.8.

Energy and metals futures were both lower.

As of 1817 GMT, front month West Texas Intermediate was down 1.65% to $52.12 a barrel on NYMEX even after the US Department of Energy reported a 2.6m barrel drop in oil inventories during the week ending on 9 December.

However, the DoE data also revealed a 943,000 barrel a day drop in stockpiles for the same week.

January 2017 natural gas futures on NYMEX on the other hand were rising 2.10% to $3.55/MMBtu.

Among metals, March 2017 COMEX copper futures were edging higher by 0.17% to $2.6030/lb., while spot platinum was rising 0.69% to $941.91oz.

Silver was doing better, tacking on 1.61% to $17.25/oz..

Soft commodities were mixed, although ICE-traded cocoa futures stood out, gaining 1.05% to $2,313 per metric tonne.