Commodities: Prices rise as EU saves Greece

Date: Friday 12 Feb 2010

Commodity prices received a boost Thursday on news that the Greek economy will be saved by the EU.

Oil jumped 76 cents, or 1%, to $75.28 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, taking this week’s gains past 5%.

The black stuff had improved earlier when the International Energy Agency (IEA) increased its demand forecasts for 2010, but eased back as the Greek bail out plan lacked detail.

Paris-based IEA said global oil demand will be 170,000 barrels a day more this year than previous forecasts. About 86.5m barrels are wanted each day, it says, up 1.6m barrels on 2009.

‘More robust economic projections by the International Monetary Fund, notably for 2010, are partly counterbalanced by a higher price assumption and persistently weak preliminary OECD oil-demand data,’ it said in its monthly report Thursday.

A stronger dollar also capped gains though, with commodities often moving in the opposite direction to the US currency.

Gold was also better, with the April futures contract ending the session up $18.40, or 1.7%, at $1,094.70 an ounce in New York.

It’s thought the plan to help the Greeks through their debt crisis won’t involve the sale of any of the yellow metal.

Commodities were also helped by news that US jobless claims fell the most since July last week, down 43,000 to 440.000.

Elsewhere, silver, copper, palladium and platinum all improved.

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