Friday June 22, 6:25 pm Eastern Time
Friday's Commodities Roundup
biz.yahoo.com
Dow Jones News
Via The Associated Press
NEW YORK (Dow Jones News) -- Battered crude and gasoline futures at the New York Mercantile Exchange staged a modest recovery Friday largely on the belief that output won't increase next month, analysts said. August crude futures gained 27 cents to close at $26.83 a barrel after hitting but failing to breach technical resistance at $27.10 a barrel. July gasoline futures, which dropped more than eight cents Wednesday and Thursday, gained 41 cent to close at 77.50 cents a gallon. Natural gas futures on the New York Mercantile Exchange settled at $3.742 per 1,000 cubic feet, a decrease of .5 cent.
In London, Brent crude for delivery in August rose 29 cents to $26.59 a barrel. Meanwhile, heating oil futures ended in negative territory, with the July contract closing 85 cent lower at 73.50 cents a gallon. Analysts said technical factors combined with growing sentiment that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries won't boost output quotas next month lifted prices.
OPEC Secretary-general Ali Rodriguez said in separate interviews Friday that declining oil prices and growing inventories make it unnecessary to boost output quotas. ``The market is now pretty stable,'' Rodriguez said in an interview with Dow Jones Newswires. He added that ``of course OPEC won't increase its production'' if Iraq resumes its oil exports. OPEC ministers meet July 3 to discuss production policy.
In other commodities:
-- Western U.S. electricity prices fell Friday to the lowest level in more than a year, mainly due to federal price controls and declining prices for natural gas. But market analysts said prices still could head higher in the event of a heat wave. July contracts at Palo Verde, Ariz. -- a major transmission hub that feeds into California -- fell to $92 a megawatt-hour from $95 Thursday. Late last week, before the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission ruling Monday that extended California wholesale power price controls to 10 other Western states, Palo Verde July traded at $160. Prices at a key hub in the Northwest fell to $85 Friday, from $115 before the FERC order.
--World raw sugar futures on the Coffee, Sugar & Cocoa Exchange settled sharply up Friday in a rally led by small speculators and funds that sent the July contract to an intraday seven-week high of 9.39 cents. A tight supply scenario in the whites market is lending support to the raws, which may encourage the trade to buy raws for refining purposes and still make a handsome profit. The July contract settled at 9.38 cents a pound, up 0.26 of a cent on the day. |
