Commodities: Oil futures fall back, lead in the spotlight

The commodities complex was broadly lower amid sharp drops for copper and oil, with remarks from Iran´s Energy Minister weighing on the latter.

Upon arriving in Vienna, ahead of OPEC´s ministerial meeting scheduled for the next day, Iran´s Bijan Namdar Zanganeh said his country would not reduce its level of output.

"We will leave the level of production we decided on in Algeria," Zanganeh said.

Although he may just have been staking out Tehran´s negotiating position ahead of the upcoming talks, as Saudi did the day before, traders appeared to decide that discretion was the better part of valour, trimming their 'long' positions in response.

As of 1845 GMT Bloomberg´s commodity index was off by a hefty 1.92% to 84.41 as the US dollar spot index was retreating 0.34% to 100.99.

West Texas Intermediate for next month delivery was down 3.30% at $46.65 a barrel in NYMEX trading, with natural gas the only energy contract to be seen in the green. January 2017 NYMEX natural gas futures were tacking on 3.44% to $3.19/MMBtu.

Over in metals, copper was the main drag, with March 2017 COMEX futures down by 2.30% at $2.6090 a pound, but nevertheless near their best levels since July 2015.

However, it was lead prices which were in focus among traders after a ten-fold jump in Shanghai futures trading volumes on 25 and 28 November combined. Year-to-date the daily average had been 15,000 lots.

"Considering the metal only moved above $2,000/t for the first time in a year in October, the current performance is sudden and striking – and we think hardly backed by the fundamentals. Indeed, if anything the market looks to be softening," analysts at Macquarie said.

Gold futures on COMEX were also lower, slipping 0.33% to $1,189.90/oz.. Chinese gold imports declined to 104 tonnes in October, Macquarie had estimated in the previous session.

The Australian broker pointed to studies showing that troubled Chinese mines were coming back online, while battery orders were sinking as consumers pushed back against high prices, to back up its argument.

Silver futures on the other hand edged up 0.36% to $16.74 per ounce.

It was a similar story for agricultural commodities, with cocoa the largest outperformer, with the March 2017 future rising 0.54% to $2,415 a metric tonne on the ICE.