WTI Oil prices passed the 100 mark – March 2

The Suez Canal brings a lot of attention in the last couple of days, first with the passing of two US warships headed to Libya and now with two Iranian warships passing later on today the Canal and are headed to Syria. This news might be responsible for the recent rise in crude oil price (WTI oil), even though Brent oil didn’t change much yesterday. WTI oil prices might also been affected by the recent news pertaining the decline in petroleum stock according to yesterday’s EIA oil report.

Let’s review the main changes in major energy commodities market and precious metals for March 2nd:

Oil and Gas prices:

Crude oil price (WTI spot) rose yesterday by 2.61% as it reached 102.23$/b.

This might be related to the recent EIA report, which showed a decline in petroleum stocks.

Brent spot price, on the other hand, declined very moderately yesterday by 0.05% to reach 115.96$/b, which is still the highest level since August 2008.

As a result the spread between the Brent oil and WTI declined yesterday to 13.73$/b.

Natural gas spot price (Henry Hub) declined by 3.55%, to reach 3.8$/mmbtu.

The Nymex Henry Hub future prices (April Delivery) fell yesterday by 0.78%, reaching 3.84 $/mmbtu. As a result the Contango for the Henry Hub has reached 0.04$/mmbtu.

Furthermore, NY City gate price inclined yesterday by 9.668% to reach 4.76$/mmbtu.

Precious Metals prices:

Gold price moderately inclined yesterday by 0.45%, as it reached 1,437$/t oz.

Silver prices, much like gold prices, inclined yesterday by 1.19% and reached 34.84$/t oz.

EURO/ USD inclined yesterday by 0.65%, the USD also depreciated against the AUD, as the AUD/USD moderately inclined by 0.35%. For a more detailed report on major currencies, check out Forex crunch.

A summary of yesterday’s Prices Changes:

The following table presents the main descriptive data from last business day – March 2nd, for precious metals, energy commodities and exchange rates. The table includes: settled prices, daily percent change, and quantitative change in US dollars (except for USD/CAD, in which the change is in Canadian dollars):

Crude oil price, Natural gas spot price,  current Gold prices Silver prices March 2

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