Oil prices ended weaker on Friday, as the market continued to question the ability of the world’s major producers to make up for losses of Iranian crude exports tied to Donald Trump’s pending US sanctions.
But West Texas Intermediate and Brent futures both rose for a fourth week in a row. Both crude contracts saw their highest settlements in nearly four years on Wednesday.
In New York, November West Texas Intermediate crude rose a cent to settle at $US74.34 a barrel on Friday after settling at a near four-year high of $US76.41 on Wednesday,
In Europe, December Brent futures lost 42 cents, or 0.5%, to end at $US84.16 a barrel.
For the week, WTI rose 1.5%, while Brent crude was up by 1.7%.
A report on Friday showed that OPEC’s 15 members raised their crude-oil output in September to 33.07 million barrels a day—up 180,000-barrel-a-day from August, according to an S&P Global Platts survey.
The survey said “that is the most OPEC has pumped since July 2017, if the Republic of Congo, which joined OPEC in June, is not included.
The figures also show that OPEC and its 10 non-OPEC partners, led by Russia, “have surpassed their stated aim of raising production by a combined 1 million b/d from May levels.” The survey said OPEC was now producing more than 800,000 barrels a day than it was in May.
US Analysts point out that is nowhere near the 1.5 million plus barrels that Iran is no longer exporting because of Donald Trump’s sanctions.
Data from Baker Hughes on Friday on the number of rigs drilling for oil in the US, fell by 2 to 861 this week. That was the third consecutive weekly decline. US production is now running at 11.1 million barrels a day.
Gold futures rose on Friday despite a stronger US dollar and ended the week a touch stronger, again in spite of the stronger greenback (which usually depresses commodity prices)
Against the backdrop of the modest rise in US jobs, weaker wages and the lowest jobless rate in 59 years, Comex December gold futures rose $4, or 0.3%, to settle at $US1,205.60 an ounce in New York.
That left the metal finished roughly 0.8% higher over the week, according to FactSet data, based on the most-active contracts.
Comex December silver rose 5.9 cents, or 0.4%, to end at $US14.649 an ounce, for a weekly loss of about 0.4%.
And Comex copper futures lost 1.5% last week to end at $US2.759 a pound.
Elsewhere, the Metal Bulletin 62% Fe Iron Ore Index was steady at $US69.24 a tonne with Chinese markets closed for the Golden Week holiday.
Copper, lead and zinc also fell sharply as industrial metals were caught up in a wider sell-off of US and European equities and the stronger dollar
In London, aluminum prices eased on Friday from a 16-week high reached on Thursday as investors questioned whether a Brazilian refinery producing the raw material alumina would close.
Three-month aluminum on the London Metal Exchange (LME) closed down 1.8% at $US2,130 a tonne after reaching $US2,267, the highest since June, on Thursday. It was still up around 3.3% over the week.
Reuters reported that “Analysts were unsure how long a shutdown would last at Norsk Hydro’s Alunorte alumina refinery, the world’s largest after the Brazilian state of Para said it had been surprised by the closure and asked for an explanation.”
LME copper ended down 1.9% at $US6,173 a tonne, zinc lost 0.7% to end at $US2,635, lead fell 0.5% to $US1,997 and tin closed steady at $US18,975.
Nickel though rose 1% higher at $US12,620 a tonne.
