Moderate inclinations for major commodities such as Silver and Crude oil – news update for December 14th

After the exploding beginning of this week with a huge rise for New York City Gate Spot prices by 105%, on the one hand, and a 3.5% rise for Silver prices on the other; currently, the main energy commodities and precious metals are still rising, but much more moderately.

Despite the recent whopping rise of NY spot prices natural gas, currently, the Nymex Henry Hub Future Prices for January (Natural gas) show a decline. This could be because of the expectations that in January the prices of Natural gas will fall as the consumption will decline compare to December.

Gold and Silver prices continue to rise after last week’s downfall, which is part of multi year trend, mainly as investors consider these metals, especially gold, as a safe haven. This is reasonable as long as there is speculation on the USD and EURO such as the Fed might consider another debt purchase to help jump start the US economy, because the benchmark interest rates in the US remain low around 0 to 0.25 percent, according to Bloomberg. This move, if will be executed will further reduce the appeal of the USD and will keep investors in Gold and Silver.

According to Bloomberg, the Crude oil prices might exceed the 100 USD mark as OPEC might reduce its spare production capacity. The speculation for 2011 starts and it seems that the recent OPEC meeting steers up more speculation vis-à-vis OPEC’s production quotas next year.

FT published an article regarding Australia painting a picture that next year there will be a rise in demand for energy commodities especially from the emerging economies, e.g. India and China, which could explain the expectations for crude oil passing the 100 USD mark.

Prices:

Here is an update on the prices of main energy and precious metals commodities for December 14th:

Energy

The crude oil price of short term futures (Nymex) – delivery for January 2011, as of 18.10 PM GMT, on the New York Mercantile Exchange, is currently traded at 88.81 USD per barrel, which represents a 0.2 USD/b increase or a 0.23% rise.

The Dated Brent spot crude oil is at 91.34 USD per barrel – a 0.96 USD per barrel increase as of 18.21PM GMT.

The WTI spot price is trading as of 17.00PM GMT at 88.66 USD per barrel, a very moderate rise of 0.06% compare to the previous business day’s rate.

Natural Gas future price (the Nymex Henry Hub Future) is currently traded as of 18.11 PM GMT, at 4.29 $ MMBTU (one million BTU), a small decrease of 0.13 which is 3.01%.

Precious Metals

Gold price continue to rise as it started at the beginning of the week, as the short term January delivery future (Gold 100 oz.) is currently traded at 1,404 USD /t. oz., a moderate 0.49% increase or 6.8 USD /t. oz. at 18.25 PM GMT.

Silver price, much like Gold price, is moderately rising, and as of 18.25 PM GMT is traded at 29.775 $/t oz. a 0.51% increase or 0.151 $/t oz, and thus Silver continue to get closer to the 30 USD mark.

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