Commodities: Russian oil output hits post-Soviet high
Natural gas, gold and cocoa futures all pushed higher on Tuesday, alongside a rally in base metals futures that left some traders at a loss for a convincing explanation.
As of 1752 BST, the Bloomberg commodity index was jumping 0.72% to 86.98 even as the US dollar spot index was edging higher by 0.11% to 95.4060.
Natural gas futures on NYMEX jumped 2.48% to $3.18/MMBtu, but the rest of the energy was complex was bathed in red.
Earlier, citing data from the country's energy ministry, Reuters had reported that Russia's oil output reached 11.36m barrels per day in September, topping American production of roughly 11.1m b/d (as per the latest weekly tally from the DoE), making it the world's top producer.
It also marked a post-Soviet record and was higher than 11.247m b/d used as the baseline for Moscow's participation in the 2016 Vienna agreement between the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries and Russia to curb their combined output.
According to Reuters survey findings, Saudi produced 10.53m b/d of crude oil last month.
On a related note, according to Interfax, Russian President Vladimir Putin was set to hold a brief meeting with the Secretary General of oil cartel, OPEC, on Wednesday.
Also according to Interfax, OPEC+ countries had not prepared for a sharp rise in crude oil prices and would promise to increase production quickly.
Nevertheless traders were expectant ahead of a 4 November deadline for fresh sanctions against Iran.
In metals meanwhile, COMEX gold futures for delivery in December also found a bid, tacking-on 1.37% to trade at $1,208.0/oz., possibly on the back of renewed tensions between Beijing and Washington in the South China Sea.
Base metals contracts - outside of tin - were also higher, after a wave of buying swept over the market towards 1400 BST, traders at Sucden Financial said, boosting three-month copper futures on the LME by $54 per metric tonne to $6,280 per tonne by the close.
"A wave of buying around 2pm London took the market by surprise triggering rallies across the board, possibly fresh money into the
markets for Q4? but otherwise hard to call the move."
Agriculture futures were little changed for the most part, but ICE-traded cocoa for December delivery did put on 4.92% to $2,088 per metric tonne.