Commodities Tuesday, Dec. 16, 1986 : Energy Futures Prices Fall

The oil futures market, registering its disappointment with OPEC’s failure to achieve an early production agreement, sent energy prices skidding Tuesday at the New York Mercantile Exchange.

West Texas Intermediate crude oil, the benchmark U.S. grade, lost as much as 26 cents a barrel.

In some other markets, livestock and meat futures mostly were higher, soybeans were higher but the grains were mixed, and precious metals were lower.

Madison Galbraith, an analyst in New York with Merrill Lynch Commodities, said the oil futures market was “OPEC addicted,” and was reacting to hour-by-hour news reports coming from the cartel’s meeting in Geneva.

Accordingly, when a report came from Geneva that the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries adjourned for the day without an agreement on production cuts as a means to raise prices, the market, which had been rallying, went into a slump.

Cartel sources said Iraq blocked an agreement to cut production because it wanted the same quota as Iran and hadn’t been able to generate enough support to get it.