Closing Commodities: Natural gas futures drop to fresh session lows as expectations for Thursday's EIA call for one of the smallest winter draws on record
- Crude oil gave back nearly all of its initial morning +1.0% gains & closed pit trading nearly unchanged ahead of tomorrow evening's API
- April crude oil futures rose $0.07 (+0.1%) to $54.04/barrel
- Contributing factors affecting the price of oil:
- Crude oil futures for April delivery were initially on track to test last week's 7-week high earlier in the morning, following data from the CFTC which showed that investors now hold 951,312 lots worth of U.S. & Brent crude futures/options, equivalent to nearly 1 bln barrels of oil at a value of more than $52 bln, as of this morning.
- Oil prices were also seeing a boost initially from comments this morning by Russian oil minister Alexander Novak regarding the possibility that Russia may accelerate the pace of its 300k barrel/day expected production cut.
- It is worth noting that crude has now given up nearly all of its initial morning gains, closing pit trading nearly flat ahead of tomorrow's API data release.
- Reminder: The IEA recorded OPEC's avg compliance at a record 90% in Jan, as stated in the latest monthly oil market report.
- Natural gas dropped and closed at a fresh session low as Thursday's EIA calls for the smallest winter draw on record
- April natural gas closed $0.10 lower (-3.6%) at $2.69/MMBtu
- Contributing factors affecting the price of natural gas:
- EIA natural gas data will be released at 10:30 am ET.
- A fifteen-day weather forecast shifted moderately warmer over this past weekend, creating a downward bias in natural gas prices.
- EIA is likely to report one of the smallest winter draws ever on Thursday, negatively impacting the market. Certain estimates call for a draw of just ~4 bcf.
- In precious metals, gold & silver remained at their initial opening prices & closed pit trading nearly unchanged
- April gold ended today's session up about $0.40 (+0.1%) around the $1258.60/oz level
- Mar silver closed today's session $0.01 higher (+0.1%) at $18.34/oz
- The dollar index was nearly flat around the 101.12 level
- Commodities, as measured by the Bloomberg Commodity Index, were -0.4% around the 87.10 level