Oil price down, gold is up

ENERGY

Benchmark West Texas Intermediate crude fell 57 cents to $US84.24 a barrel in afternoon trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange (NYMEX), after rising as high as $85.98 earlier in the session.

In London, Brent crude fell 79 cents to $US102.29 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

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US stockpiles of crude oil continue to rise, undercutting the price of benchmark WTI.

Energy traders kept an eye on anti-government protests that continued in Iran and Bahrain after Egypt's president was forced from power last week. There is concern that unrest could spread to other countries and disrupt oil shipments from OPEC countries.

In other Nymex trading in March contracts, heating oil fell 1 cent to $2.7360 a gallon and gasoline lost 3 cents at $2.4908 a gallon. Natural gas rose 6 cents to $3.980 per 1,000 cubic feet.

PRECIOUS METALS

In April contracts, gold settled $9 higher at $US1,374.10 while platinum was up $14.10 at $US1,827.60.

In March contracts, silver ended up 16.2 cents at $US30.696, and palladium, still in late trade, was $5.40 higher at $US838.20.

INDUSTRIAL METALS

Copper fell from record highs on Tuesday on concerns further monetary tightening in China may affect base metals demand and as worries about political instability in the Middle East curbed risk appetite.

Benchmark copper on the LME hit a record high of $10,190 a tonne shortly after China's headline inflation figures initially appeared to suggest there was a reduced risk of speedy monetary tightening.

Prices then fell as the full implications of the Chinese data on policy were digested. It closed at $10,011 from $10,160 a tonne on Monday.

Tin also hit an all-time peak of $32,799.

Copper has climbed by two thirds since June 2010 when worries about sovereign default in the euro zone sparked severe selling of investments seen as risky.

Since then it has been pushed ahead by a rebound in the West and still robust, if slowing, growth in emerging nations, which have outpaced growth in supply.

Preliminary Chinese trade data showed copper imports jumped a surprise 5.7 per cent to 364,240 tonnes.

Meanwhile, copper stocks continued their uptrend, rising by 650 tonnes net to 402,425 tonnes to now stand at the highest level since August 2010, the latest LME data showed.

Aluminium inventories also rose, and are now some 40,000 tonnes short of record highs.

Aluminium finished at $2,502 a tonne, versus a $2,514 close on Monday.

Nickel ended at $28,745, from $28,895.

Elsewhere, lead closed at $2,635 a tonne from $2,640 and zinc at $2,491 from $2,521 at the close on Monday.

Tin, untraded in rings, was bid at $32,500 a tonne, up from $32,450 on Monday. It has advanced 22 per cent this year on the back of supply constraints from top exporter Indonesia.

(Source: http://news.smh.com.au/breaking-news-business/oil-price-down-gold-is-up-20110216-1avgd.html)