Mangaluru, February 13

Crude oil traded lower on Monday morning on apprehensions over the US further tightening its monetary policy.

At 9.46 am, April Brent oil futures were at $85.63, down by 0.88 per cent; and March crude oil futures on WTI were at $78.92, down by 1 per cent.

February crude oil futures were trading at ₹6,538 on Multi Commodity Exchange (MCX) in the early trade against the previous close of ₹6,556, down by 0.27 per cent; and March futures were trading at ₹6,571 as against the previous close of ₹6,585, down by 0.21 per cent.

Last week, officials from the US Federal Reserves indicated possibility of more rate hikes to bring down inflation. With the US job markets remaining strong, now there are apprehensions in the market that the interest rates would go up. Any aggressive increase in the interest rate would make the commodities such as crude oil costlier, impacting demand.

Awaiting inflation data

Market is expecting the US inflation data scheduled to be released on Tuesday to gauge plans of the Federal Reserve on rate hikes.

Russia’s decision to cut crude oil output by 500,000 barrels a day in March, around 5 per cent of total production, had helped the oil futures to go up by almost 2 per cent on Friday.

February natural gas futures were trading at ₹211.40 on MCX in the initial trading hours against the previous close of ₹208.20, up by 1.5 per cent.

Jeera, guar gum slip

On the National Commodities and Derivatives Exchange (NCDEX), March jeera contracts were trading at ₹32,080 in the initial trading hour of Monday morning against the previous close of ₹32,950, down by 2.64 per cent.

February guar gum futures were trading at ₹11,766 on NCDEX in the initial trading hour of Monday morning against the previous close of ₹11,877, down by 0.93 per cent.

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