Oil prices Jump 6% – Good News for Gold and Silver prices?

Today is Monday 12th December 2016 and we are commenting on the 6% rise in oil prices after OPEC and other producers reached their first deal since 2001 to reduce output.

On 30th November we produced a video highlighting that OPEC members agreed to cut back oil production by some 1.2 million barrels a day, (incidentally the first agreement of its kind since 2008) however were awaiting the outcome of a meeting with Non-OPEC oil producing countries to see whether it could have a long lasting effect on oil prices.

Well that meeting took place over the weekend which included Russia, and it was agreed to cut output by a further 558,000 barrels per day.

The production cuts, to take effect from January 2017, are expected to see the global oversupply of oil shift to a shortfall – thereby pushing prices up. This was endorsed by Analysts at Bernstein who said:

"Once cuts are implemented at the start of 2017, oil markets will shift from surplus into deficit."

The price of a barrel of Brent crude climbed close to $58 overnight, its highest level since July 2015, but has fallen back to the current price of $55.94 still up $1.61 on the day but still remains some 50% lower than its level in mid-2014.

Higher oil prices are likely to feed through to petrol price increases, ultimately pushing up inflation, especially in those countries whose currencies have recently devalued, such as the UK and Europe.

This does not bode well for interest rates which may be raised to combat inflation; however having said that, generally speaking gold and silver prices do tend to rise alongside oil price rises, so this inter- relationship will be interesting to observe.

At the time of production of this video, gold has risen by $5 to $1163 oz. but silver is the comparative star rising 1.75% or 29 cents to $17.15.

This is indeed good news for those wishing to see higher gold and silver prices, however the FED’s decision on Wednesday will have a more dramatic effect short term.