Cold weather forecasts in the US pushed oil prices up on Thursday because demand for kerosene and heating oil is expected to pick up as temperatures drop.
IPE Brent for January delivery jumped $1.69 to reach $58.67 a barrel by the close in London trade. January Nymex West Texas Intermediate swept past $60 a barrel to settle at $60.66, up $1.45, in New York trade.
January Nymex heating oil futures added 2.34 cents to $1.76 a gallon, which is still about 45 cents below the record peak reached in September.
US gas futures jumped 5 per cent on the forecasts for colder weather. January Nymex natural gas Henry Hub futures were 70 cents up at $14.40 per million British thermal unit, and within striking distance of the $14.75 peak reached in early October.
The US benchmark gas futures are named after the key gas connection hub in Louisiana.
However, the mild weather in the UK pushed domestic gas prices to a three-week low of 78p per therm.
Although there may be growing concern about higher winter fuel bills, US car owners are becoming less worried about petrol prices.
The US Department of Energy said this week that the US average retail price for regular gasoline dropped by 0.7 cent to $2.147 per gallon in the week ended December 2, the ninth week in a row that prices have fallen.The department said this price was the lowest since June 13, but still 23.6 cents higher than the same time a year ago.
Metal prices extended their record-breaking run. Silver touched a fresh 18-year high of $8.88 a troy ounce. Platinum again struggled to stay above the $1,000 an ounce level, a point it has attempted to breach conclusively in the past two weeks.
Aluminium extended its run of record highs. The three-month price for aluminium touched a fresh 16-year high of $2,252 a tonne on the London Metal Exchange, up $17 from the open-outcry close in the previous session.
The three-month LME copper price reached another all-time high when it traded at $4,474 a tonne, before slipping to $4,457 in late LME trade, up just $5 on the day. The copper market remained gripped by speculation that
China’s State Reserve Bureau has a large short position, giving it an obligation to deliver the red metal into LME warehouses.
Zinc prices touched a fresh 16-year high of $1,842.5 a tonne as LME zinc stockpiles continued to fall as China becomes a net importer of the metal.
Refined sugar futures extended its nine-year high to $334.1 a tonne in London, and raw sugar futures hit a new 10-year peak of 13.63 cents a pound.
