Headlines
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Speculations and Niger delta fights send crude towards 60 $/b
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Gold eases from previous high
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Copper returns above 4500 $/t
Brent and Distillates
Crude oil rose on Monday, leading a broad rally by commodity markets as investors appeared to shrug off last week’s concerns that prices had risen too fast. The price increase may be speculative partially as leading activity indicators in advanced economies have not show a recovery supportive of oil demand, just a slow down in the pace of contraction.
Today oil prices steadied around 59$/b after settling a day earlier at a six-month high on supply concerns from Nigeria and speculative purchases.
Kuwait's oil minister said there was no need for further output cuts by OPEC as he did not want to see oil prices go up too fast.
In Nigeria, militants threatened to block key waterways in the Niger delta as tensions escalated following an upsurge in violence between Nigerian security forces and the Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta.
President Barack Obama on Tuesday will propose the most aggressive increase in U.S. auto fuel efficiency ever in a policy initiative that would also directly regulate emissions for the first time and resolve a dispute with California over cleaner cars.
A senior administration official, speaking to reporters late on Monday on the condition of anonymity, said average fuel standards for all new passenger vehicles -- cars and light trucks -- would rise by 10 miles a gallon over today's performance to 35.5 miles per gallon between 2012-16.
Protesters in the Amazon basin have forced Peru's state energy company to shut its crude oil pipeline, a company official said on Monday as the government tries to end weeks of demonstrations over natural resources. Indigenous communities have blocked roads and waterways to pressure the government to revoke investment laws Peru passed under a free-trade pact with the United States and to revise concessions granted to foreign energy companies.
