Commodities: US shale producers hedge their production

Crude oil futures slipped back with markets focused on the possibility that US alternative oil producers were using the current upswing to lock-in prices for their production in 2017 and 2018.

Front month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures fell 1.61% to $50.97 a barrel on the NYMEX.

During the previous session, the February 2017 Brent contract had managed to climb atop technical resistance at roughly $54.0 a barrel, despite the latest survey data from Bloomberg revealing that OPEC's level of output jumped to 34.16m barrels a day in November from 33.96m for October, led by Angola.

As of 1925 GMT, Bloomberg's commodity index was 0.40% lower to 87.99 as the US dollar spot index strengthened 0.41% to trade at 100.50.

Metals came under moderate selling pressure, with March 2017 COMEX copper futures down by the most, retreating 1.04% to change hands at $2.67 a pound.

Precious metals were also on the backfoot, with gold futures on COMEX losing 0.47% to $1,170.70/oz - their weakest register since early February 2016.

Soft commodities were putting in a mixed performance alongside them, although price moves were generally restrained in both directions.

March 2017 CBoT corn futures were up by 0.21% to $3.60 per bushel even as wheat traded down by 0.37% to $4.0675 per bushel.

CME live cattle on the other hand was a bit of an exception, gaining 1.65% to $1.1078 per pound.