The rising tensions in Ukraine saw gold rise on Friday night our time, but it didn’t move the value of the Aussie dollar which firmed back towards 93 USc again.
Oil dipped, copper was a touch firmer but lower on the week, while iron ore prices fell (unrelated to what’s happening in Ukraine) over the week, dragging down the prices of leading miners such as BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto.
Global iron ore prices ended the week around $US104 a tonne and yet the fall, which started in late March as Chinese iron ore stocks rose, hasn’t impacted exports to China.
While prices are down more than 20% so far this year, exports out of Australia to China are running at record levels.
Figures out on Friday show that iron ore exports to China from Port Headland in WA (used by BHP and Fortescue), jumped to yet another record in April.
Shipments to China from the world’s largest bulk export terminal totalled 28.9 million tonnes, up from 27 million tonnes in March and just 19.3 million tonnes in April 2013.
Total exports were also a record 34.8 million tonnes last month, up from 34.4 million tonnes in March and 26 million tonnes in April 2013, the data show.
In fact exports are running at well above a million tonnes a day and could have been above 35 million tonnes for the month, given there was one less day in April compared with March.
Bloomberg pointed out that the rise in exports was despite a rise in steel mills stock of ore last month – those rose 1.3% to a record 105.19 million tonnes in the week ended April 25 and have climbed 29% so far in 2014.
In New York Comex gold prices settled above $US1,300 an ounce on Friday, for their first rise in five days, thanks to the confirmed reports of escalating violence in Ukraine which more than offset earlier selling pressure from the stronger-than-expected US jobs report for April and its 288,000 jobs.
Gold for June delivery jumped $US19.50, or 1.5%, to settle at $1,302.90.
Prices had fallen after the employment report, then rallied following news reports surrounding Russia and Ukraine.
That rebound turned a weekly loss into a gain, with gold prices ending about 0.2% higher than a week ago.
Comex July silver rose 50c, or 2.6%, to end at $US19.55 an ounce, still down around 0.7% for the week.
Comex copper for July delivery rose nearly 5c, or 1.6%, to $US3.07 a pound (one of its best day’s trading for a month or more).
But the metal lost 1.8% on the week.
Oil futures settled higher on Friday as the unexpectedly strong jump in April employment data helped boost the prospects for energy demand, with the problems in Ukraine adding to the upward pressure on prices.
Oil prices had their first gain in three days, but still ended the week with a loss.
June Nymex crude futures rose 34c, or 0.3%, to settle at $US99.76 a barrel in New York Mercantile Exchange, but were down 0.8% over the week as American domestic production soared for another week, pushing stocks of unsold crude.
In London June Brent crude the European benchmark, rose 83c, or 0.8%, to $US108.59 a barrel, but was still down about 0.9% for the week.
Government data during the week showed US oil production has reached its highest levels in 25 years and stocks were at a 26 year high of 399 million barrels, up nearly 20 million barrels, from a week ago.
