Commodities: Crude futures mildly ahead in subdued Thanksgiving trade
Crude-oil futures were appreciating mildly on Thursday afternoon with the Thanksgiving holiday in the US resulting in overall subdued activity across the commodities boards.
The black liquid remains susceptible to speculation on whether OPEC will successfully introduce an output cap when it next meets on 30 November in Vienna.
At about 15:34 GMT, Nymex-quoted West Texas Intermediate was up 0.21% to $48.06 a barrel and Intercontinental Exchange-traded Brent was up 0.33% to $49.11 a barrel.
Accendo Markets analysts analysts Mike van Dulken and Henry Croft observed that crude prices were trading sideways, albeit with minor gains, having avoided a breakdown thanks to a larger-than-expected draw-down in US crude oil stores Wednesday.
"A declaration by the Iraqi PM that the country is willing to reduce production could pave the way for a harmonised OPEC production cut deal next week, however non-OPEC producer Russia remains hesitant to cut its own output," the pair said in a research note.
Russia has reiterated that it was willing to freeze its oil production in 2017, but cast a degree of doubt on its willingness to actually cut output ahead of a technical meeting between OPEC and non-member countries to try and reach an agreement.
According to Russia´s Energy Minister, Alexander Novak, a freeze would mean that the country would in fact be pumping between 200,000 to 300,000 barrels less than it had originally planned to do so in 2017.
In parallel, Azerbaijan’s Energy Minister Natig Aliyev reportedly told a newspaper that the oil cartel had asked non-members to slash their production by up to 880,000 barrels a day.
For their part, OPEC countries themselves were expected to try and reach a deal to reduce their own combined output to between 32.5m to 33.0m b/d from its current level in a meeting scheduled for 30 November in Vienna.
IG chief market analyst Chris Beauchamp noted that crude's future performance was linked to the upcoming OPEC meet. He said that a failure by OPEC to agree a cap would provide the "perfect excuse for a wave of fresh selling in both Brent and WTI."
Meantime, Comex-listed gold was down 0.24% to $1186.4 an ounce, with silver down 0.24% to $16.45 an ounce and copper up 2.35% to 267.9 cents a pound.
Van Dulken and Croft noted the yellow metal continued to trade below $1200, having broken below nine-month support yesterday as the dollar hit 14-year high.
"Currently trading in a $1180-$1195 trading channel, might a bearish pennant pattern spelling further to fall for the precious metal?" the duo pondered.
London Metals Exchange-traded three-month industrial metals were all firmly ahead. Copper was up 2.26% to $5740 a MT, while aluminum added 1.02% to $1778 a MT and tin firmed 0.93% to $21,245 a MT. Zinc rose 2.61% to $2670 a mt.
In agriculturals, Chicago Board of Trade-priced corn was up 0.07% to 359.25 cents a bushel, and wheat was down 0.82% to 423.75 cents a bushel.
ICE-listed cocoa fell 0.04% to $2439 a MT, while cotton No.2 lost 0.83% to 71.64 cents a pound. Live cattle was up 0.57% to 110.8 cents a pound.