Commodities: Quiet day for oil as possible US sanctions on Venezuela loom

Oil markets saw little change on Monday as the market readied itself for a potential fallout between the US and Venezuela following Sunday's election, after it was labelled a "sham" by Washington.

At the moment, it is unclear if or what form the sanctions may take, but Jason Bordoff, director at Columbia University's Center on Global Energy Policy had this to say "sanctions prohibiting U.S. exports of crude and product would force Venezuela to source these from elsewhere at a premium, further straining Venezuela's fiscal situation as it struggles to meet its debt obligations."

Spot Brent crude saw some marginal selling on the day, lower 0.48% at $52.01 by 1700 BST with the NYMEX bench mark also lower 0.57% on the day at $49.40.

Spot gold saw the precious metal hit an almost seven-week high on Monday, helped along by a weaker dollar and US economic data that casts doubt on any Federal Reserve rate hikes this year.

Commerzbank analyst Eugen Weinberg said "dollar weakness is driving the gold price. It's not just against the euro, it's against most major currencies."

Gold was seen achieving those seven-week highs during the overnight session, taking it to $1,270.98. During the UK trading day however, some selling was seen forcing gold into a typical $10 trading range to end the day lower 0.12% at $1,268.06.

In other precious metal news, silver was higher on the day 0.29% at $16.78 along with platinum and paladium by 0.24% ($937.30) and 0.78% ($886.6) respectively.

On the agriculural front, soybean futures were range bound for the day between $1,000/$1,005, with a slight push higher at the day end to close the day higher 0.02%.

Corn futures saw much of the same price action with range bound moves seen before a slight push higher to end the day at $374.7 a bushel, up 0.03%.