Commodities Round-up: Oil futures spike after IEA report confirms Opec cuts

Oil futures spiked on Friday (10 February), extending overnight gains after the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Opec producers were close to reaching their production cut target for 2017 outlined at their last meeting.

While Opec's own production data is due on 13 February, the IEA said the cartel had achieved 90% of its target of reducing headline oil production by 1.2m barrels per day (bpd) to 32.5m bpd as stated on 30 November, 2016 in Vienna, Austria.

Elsewhere in its latest market update, the IEA also predicted that world oil inventories will fall by 600,000 bpd over the first half of the year if Opec sticks to its agreement.

However, FXTM research analyst Lukman Otunuga said although Opec has been compliant with the output cuts, the rising fear of US shale pumping incessantly, could limit upside gains on oil.

"Technical traders may observe how West Texas Intermediate (WTI) reacts to the $54 resistance level with weakness potentially opening a path lower towards $52."

At 3:53pm GMT, the Brent front month futures contract was 1.86% or $1.10 higher at $56.73 per barrel, while the WTI was up 1.87% or 99 cents at $53.99 per barrel, as both benchmarks marched upward with the end of the trading week in sight.

Away from the oil market, precious metals were on a mixed patch. At 4:01pm GMT, the Comex gold futures contract for April delivery was down 0.42% or $5.20 at $1,231.60 an ounce, but spot gold was 0.20% or $2.50 higher at $1,230.86 an ounce.

Finally, Comex silver was up 0.95% or 17 cents to $17.91 an ounce, while spot platinum was 0.68% or $6.85 lower at $1,007.65 an ounce and palladium remained in positive territory at $785.21 an ounce, up 2.05% or $15.74 an ounce.

In a note to clients analysts at Capital Economics wrote: "While the outlook for for palladium is more encouraging, we expect the recent rally in the prices of precious metals to lose momentum amid uncertain demand."