The story of metal markets this week reads like a laundry list of achievements.
Zinc crashed through the US$3,000 barrier for the first time in a decade. Copper got back to US$3 per pound in New York for the first time since 2014. Aluminum reached three-year highs in London.
Driving the gains was a combination of data showing faster economic growth, a weaker US dollar and shrinking supply.
Chinese capacity curbs have boosted aluminum, while stockpiles of zinc tracked by the London Metal Exchange (LME) have slumped to the lowest level since 2008.
Zinc rose 2 percent to settle at US$3,124 per tonne, extending a weekly gain to 7.9 percent. For the year, the metal used to galvanize steel is up 21 percent, rivaling aluminum as the top-performing LME metal for this year.
Aluminum stockpiles reached the lowest since September 2008 this week and the spot price was the highest relative to the three-month contract since January.
Copper, little changed on Friday, touched US$3 per pound earlier in the week for the first time since 2014.
Early on, gold rose to its highest price since before the US presidential election in November last year, but it finished down US$0.80 at US$1,291.60 per ounce.
Silver dipped US$0.05 to US$17 per ounce.
Data this week showed China’s daily zinc production last month contracted to the lowest level in three years. Pit suspensions by companies including Glencore PLC and environmental checks in China are constraining supply just as global demand recovers.
Yet, analysts are questioning if there is enough demand to sustain prices at current levels.
China home prices last month rose in fewer cities, adding to signs the property market is cooling. Prices fell in nine cities and were unchanged in five, the Chinese National Bureau of Statistics said on Friday.
Oil was poised for the largest weekly decline since early last month amid concerns that OPEC’s efforts to cut supply are threatened by growing output from the US and declining demand in China.
Futures dropped 0.4 percent in New York for a 3.9 percent loss this week.
Data from the US Energy Information Administration showed that US production last week had the biggest weekly advance since June, even though crude stockpiles declined by the most since September last year.
The agency also forecast that crude output at major shale plays will reach an all-time high next month.
At the same time, oil processing in China fell last month, the biggest July decline in three years, adding to continuing concern about the intractability of the global oil glut.
Even if exploration companies stop deploying additional rigs, there is still an inventory of drilled, but uncompleted wells that producers can tap into to sustain supply, he said.
Oil in New York cannot seem to hold at more than US$50 per barrel on concerns that elevated inventories are not draining even as OPEC and its allies make efforts to reduce output.
West Texas Intermediate for delivery next month rose to US$48.51 per barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Total volume traded was 15 percent less than the 100-day average. Prices had risen US$0.31, or 0.7 percent, to US$47.09 on Thursday, the first gain in four sessions.
Brent for October settlement dropped US$0.19 cents to US$50.84 per barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. The contract on Thursday advanced US$0.76, or 1.5 percent, to US$51.03 per barrel. Prices are down 2.4 percent this week.
US crude output last week rose by 79,000 barrels per day to 9.5 million per day, the highest since July 2015, the Energy Information Administration reported on Wednesday.
Crude stockpiles declined to 466.5 million barrels.
In other energy trading, wholesale gasoline rose US$0.04 to US$1.62 per gallon, heating oil added US$0.04 to US$1.62 per gallon and natural gas lost US$0.04 to US$2.89 per 1,000 cubic feet.
Additional reporting by AP
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