The month of May finished with rises in the major energy commodities including crude oil and natural gas, while precious metals experienced moderate changes.
Here is a summary of the main price changes in energy commodities and precious metals for May 31st:
Oil and Gas prices:
Oil price (WTI) finished the month of May and it increased by 2.10% to reach 102.70 USD/b; during May the WTI crude oil price fell by 9.4%.
Brent oil price also inclined yesterday by 1.34% and reached 116.73 USD /b.
As a result, the difference between Brent and WTI declined to $14.03.
Natural gas price (Henry Hub spot) also finished the week on a rise as it inclined by 6.19% and reached 4.63 USD/mmbtu – the highest price level in May. The Henry Hub future price also increased sharply by 3.32% to 4.67 USD/mmbtu – – the highest price level since May 3rd; as a result the spread between future and spot price reached 0.04 USD/mmbtu, i.e. contango.
Precious Metals prices:
Gold price finished May with a very moderate fall of 0.03% as it closed the day at $1,536. Silver price on the other hand declined by 1.17% and reached $38.31.
During May, gold prices decreased by 1.3% and silver price fell by 21.2%.
The EURO/ USD continued to rise for the third straight business day; yesterday it rose by 0.54%, as the USD depreciated against the EURO. During May the EURO/USD lost 2.8% of its value.
A summary of yesterday’s Prices Changes:
The table below includes: closing prices, daily percent change, and change in US dollars (except for USD/CAD, in which the change is in Canadian dollars):
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For further reading (in this site):
Monthly Analysis and Outlook:
- Natural gas prices outlook for May 2011
- Gold and silver prices outlook May 2011
- Oil prices Monthly outlook –May 2011