Commodities: Crude oil prices find small bid, Russia keeping an eye on volatility

Commodities were on the front foot ahead of Thanksgiving, boosted by oil price gains after Russian government spokesperson, Dmitry Peskov, said Moscow was watching the gyrations in the oil price.

Nevertheless, according to TASS, Peskov made no references as to what Russia's position on oil output cuts at the upcoming meeting of the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries might be.

With the opposite implications for the direction of oil prices, citing three industry executives who track Saudi output, Bloomberg reported that the Kingdom had been pumping at between 10.8m and 10.9m barrels of crude per day, with supplies in excess of 11.0m b/d attained on some days by drawing down stockpiles.

As of 2019 GMT, front month Brent crude oil futures were ahead by 0.94% at $63.12 per barrel on the ICE, alongside a rise of 1.52% to $54.24 a barrel for West Texas Intermediate.

In parallel, the Bloomberg commodity index was up by 0.60% even as the US dollar spot index was trimming its earlier losses to trade lower by just 0.16% to 96.6850.

As an aside, earlier in the session, the US Department of Energy reported that the country's crude oil stockpiles jumped over the week ending on 16 November, despite an increase in refining activity, as domestic output held at 11.7m barrels per day.

Commercial oil stockpiles in the States grew by 4.9m barrels to reach 446.9m barrels (consensus: 2.9m), the DoE said.

In the metals space meanwhile, silver did best, with the December contract on COMEX up by 1.44% to $14.48/oz..

Three-month copper futures were also putting in a solid showing, rising from $6,164 per metric tonne at the open to $6,235 per tonne.