Monday's Commodities Roundup
Monday May 9, 5:28 pm ET
Dow Jones News Service, Via The Associated Press
NEW YORK (AP) -- Crude-oil futures in New York settled up more than a dollar Monday, topping $52 for the first time in nearly two weeks, as remarks from OPEC members convinced traders that oil prices may have little reason to retreat.
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Benchmark light, sweet crude futures for June ended up $1.07 at $52.03 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, gaining for the fourth straight day and marking the highest front-month settlement so far in May. Oil prices are up about 30 percent on the year.
Nymex gasoline futures for June settled at their highest price in a week, up 0.0113 cent at $1.4873 a gallon, flanked by gains in June heating oil futures.
June heating oil rose 0.0091 cent to $1.4402 a gallon.
Remarks from OPEC's president indicating the group's top producer, Saudi Arabia, was pumping nearly 10 million barrels a day alerted the market to the possibility of a thinning supply cushion heading into the high-demand summer.
OPEC President Sheik Ahmad Fahad al-Ahmad al-Sabah, who also serves as Kuwait's oil minister, said ample world oil supplies would keep OPEC from raising oil production further in the near term, but added that the group's spare production capacity will shrink from about 2 million barrels a day to about 1 million barrels a day in the third quarter amid seasonal demand increases.
"When he came out this morning and said Saudi Arabia was pumping 10 million (barrels a day), people started to get worried about spare capacity," said Michael Guido, head of commodity strategy in New York for Societe Generale. "I think people are convinced they'd rather not be short this summer."
"People are thinking that this $50 level may hold and they're buying on fear of being short in summertime -- not trading so much on current fundamentals," Guido said.
At present, U.S. commercial oil inventories are hovering at a three-year high.
June natural gas rose 0.053 cent to close at $6.674 per million British thermal units.
In other commodities trading, gold futures treaded water just above recent lows Monday in a low-key session that saw players opt to linger on the sidelines until a clearer picture can be gleaned from the currency markets.
The most active June gold contract settled unchanged at $426.90 per ounce on the Comex division of the Nymex.
Spot gold finished up 10 cents at $425.80 an ounce.
July silver rose 0.115 cent to $7.080 an ounce.
July platinum closed up $3.80 at $878.60 an ounce.
July copper rose 0.55 cents to 144.65 cents per pound.
On the New York Board of Trade, Arabica coffee futures ended lower after an early surge through Friday's highs ran out of steam.
The May contract settled down 0.45 cent at $1.2145 a pound and July lost 0.55 cent to $1.2395 a pound.
July cocoa settled $5 higher at $1,489 a metric ton.
World raw sugar futures for July settled down 0.6 cent at 8.36 cents a pound and October lost 0.7 cent to 8.37 cents a pound.
Chicago Board of Trade May corn settled 0.75 cent lower at $1.9975 per bushel.
July soybeans settled 2.25 cents lower at $6.3775 a bushel.
July wheat ended down 3.50 cents at $3.1350 a bushel.
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