Commodities: Crude futures give back previous session's gains, coal jumps

9th Sep 2016 19:31

(ShareCast News) - The commodity complex was almost uniformly awash in red as traders reassessed the latest US oil inventory data and the greenback gained amid as expectations for tightening by the US central bank moved moderately higher again.Front month West Texas Intermediate crude oil futures were getting walloped after the latest weekly tally from the US Department of Energy, published the day before, revealed a stonking 14.5m barrel drop in crude stockpiles Stateside - the largest decline since 1999.That sent crude oil futures sharply higher on 8 September, but market-chatter on Friday was that the inventory drop was at least partly the result of the tropical storm and hurricane which lashed through the Gulf of Mexico at the tail-end of August.Data released on Friday evening would also show that the number of onshore US oil rigs increased by 3 in the week ending on 9 September to 485.November 2016 WTI futures were down by 3.57% to $45.92 per barrel on the NYMEX as of 1907 BST.Among the few exceptions in the market, October 2016 natural gas futures on NYMEX were up by 0.18% to $2.81/MMBtu.Worth noting as well, Australian premium hard coking coal was again on the rise and sporting a more than 30% gain month-to-date, with potentially very positive implications for the likes of BHP and Rio Tinto according to analysts.Coking coal prices had soared 90% since mid-June while thermal coal prices were up by nearly 40%, according to analysts at Macquarie."If we assumed spot prices for the remaining nine months of FY17 (June Y/E) BHP and RIO's earnings over that period would rise ~US$1.5bn each. Free cash flow would rise US$1.6bn for RIO and US$1.3bn for BHP," the broker's analysts said in a research report dated 8 September. Out on the Chicago Board of Trade meanwhile, December 2016 corn futures were gaining 0.66% to $3.4075 a bushel and October 2016 CME live cattle futures were trading ahead by 2.96% to $1.0440 per pound.In parallel, the US dollar index was 0.47% higher to 95.44, alongside a 1.21% fall for Bloomberg's commodity index to 84.1195.