Commodities : Oil Futures Little Changed

Oil futures fluttered nervously Tuesday on concerns about deepening U.S. involvement in the Middle East.

By session’s end, prices were little changed on the New York Mercantile Exchange, but showed a firmness anchored in the recent production agreement turned out by the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries.

On other markets, grain and soybean futures were mostly higher, livestock futures were mostly higher while pork bellies declined and precious metals were higher.

Mid-day trading in oil futures strengthened on rumors that the U.S. Embassy in Kuwait had been bombed, said Nauman Barakat, an analyst in New York with Smith Barney, Harris Upham & Co. “This was assumed to be an attack by Iran due to the reflagging of Kuwaiti tankers.” The purported bombing was denied by the White House and later the incident was explained as a minor, accidental explosion related to construction work at the embassy.

“But the market is extremely sensitive to those kinds of stories,” Barakat said.