Hong Kong gold lower: Hong Kong spot gold endedlower on Monday, barely moving in price as trading slowed ahead of Christmas holidays, dealers said. Gold bullion ended at $292.20/70 per ounce on Monday compared to New York's previous close at $292.25/75 on Friday. Gold closed at the same price as it opened and stayed within a tight, 50-cent range. He said he expected gold to test the lower end of its present range of $290-294 in the short term. Spot silver ended at $4.77/80 an ounce, the same as the closing price in New York on Friday. In the next couple of weeks gold may see some flurries of activity, but mostly trading should be slow because of the approaching holidays, traders said. In Australian dollar terms, gold has moved off its technical lows of A$460-465 an ounce, he said. Local tael gold ended unchanged at HK$2,696. The carry over charge at the Chinese Gold and Silver Exchange Society was -2, up from its previous fix at -6.

Tocom gold higher: Yen-based gold futures firmed slightly on Monday supported by the dollar's strength against theyen, while platinum and palladium contracts weakened in general, traders said. Gold futures ranged from two to seven yen per gram higher.Benchmark October gained two to end at 1,109 yen. Trading companies, however, supported platinum prices as they bought on dips, he added. Platinum futures ended mixed ranging from six yen per gram lower to five yen higher. Benchmark October ended down one yen at 1,299 yen. Palladium futures ranged from 13 yen per gram lower to unchanged. Benchmark October ended off 10 yen at 960 yen.

Copper, aluminium set to drift lower: New lows around $1,500 a tonne beckon for London Metal Exchange (LME) copper on Monday, analysts and traders said. Any corrective bounce from 11-1/2-year lows touched last week would be short lived until LME stock rises slowed or producers made substantial production cuts, they added. Aluminium was expected to drift down to $1,250 then $1,220supports while awaiting a technical rebound. Movements in copper were seen as the key to the shortterm.

KL tin rises: Malaysia's spot tin price rose five cents to end at 20.00 ringgit ($5.3) a kg after a higher London market prompted foreign buying, traders said. "The market was steady and some buying was seen from Europe, Japan and Malaysia," said a trader who expects the market to trade above the 20 ringgit level. They saw an opening bid of 82 tonnes against offer of 45 tonnes. Turnover rose to 72 tonnes from Friday's 53 tonnes. The local price differential over the London Metal Exchange widened slightly to $80 a tonne premium from $65 previously.

Chinese plant exports copper: China's Luoyang Copper Plant has exported to Europe 1,500 tonnes of copper alloy for casting new euro coins, the Economic Information Daily said on Monday. The copper alloy was exported by the end of October after Luoyang's material passed rigid tests, the newspaper said. Luoyang Copper has signed a long-term contract to provide more than 10,000 tonnes of copper alloy a year for the new European currency to beintroduced from next year, it said. The central Henan province-based plant had exported a total of 80,000 tonnes of copper materials worth $240 million by the end of October this year, becoming China's largest export base of copper materials, it said, giving no more details.

Asian crude up: Crude futures trading in Asia were firmer on Monday, supported by comments from the president-elect of Venezuela that he would rigorously comply with Opec production cuts. But traders said the firmer tone was a knee-jerk reaction to the news, and that longer-term, domestic pressures in Venezuela might make it difficult for the country to keep crude production reined in. At 0350 GMT, January Nymex crude futures were last traded at $11.38 per barrel, up 21 cents from New York's close on Friday. The February Brent contract on SIMEX was last traded at$10.55, up 11 cents from London's close. The January contract was untraded. Early results from the Venezuelan election confirmed Hugo Chavez the winner. In a pressconference, he vowed closer ties with Opec and that Venezuela would comply rigorously with Opec's oil production cuts. But traders were sceptical. Venezuela has been seen widely by analysts as not abiding by its Opec pledge to cut 525,000 barrels per day of production from a February base of 3.37 million bpd. Traders also dismissed weekend comments by Opec secretary general Rilwanu Lukman that Opec would not rule out holding an emergency meeting before its next scheduled meeting in March. Crude futures prices hit fresh 12-year lows last week after a divisive Opec meeting in Vienna late in November, in which the 11-member oil group failed to come up with any fresh initiative with which to tackle stubbornly low oil prices.

Mabanaft to stop Asian trade: Germany-based oil trader Mabanaft is pulling out of trading in Asia to concentrate on its Europe business, industry sources said on Monday. "It's the usual -- Asian crisis and they want to concentrate more on the Europe side. It's an attempt toconsolidate," one source close to the company said. Traders said that they had received letters last week from Mabanaft informing them of the closure of the Singapore office but no reasons were cited. Mabanaft Singapore traders declined to comment when contacted. Sources said that Mabanaft Singapore, a trading arm, willfully wind down operations by January 1999. Mabanaft is a sister company of Oil Tanking and has few assets in Asia besides oil storages in Singapore and India, sources said. "For the last three years, they have been very quiet out here," one trader said.

Sri Lanka buys diesel: Sri Lanka's state-owned Ceylon Petroleum Corp (CPC) has bought diesel and jet fuel for December delivery at 23 cents and 28 cents respectively over Singapore prices, traders said on Monday. They said the award was made to Kuwait Petroleum Corp (KPC). The tender sought 25,000 tonnes of 1.0-percent sulphur diesel and 15,000 tonnes of jet fuel for delivery into Colombo between December 20 to 21. It closed onDecember 2 and offers are valid until December 4. Other offers from six sellers ranged from premiums of 84 cents to $1.54 per barrel for diesel and 74 cents to $1.24 per barrel for jet fuel over their respective Singapore quotes. In its last tender, CPC bought 30,000 tonnes of diesel and 5,000 tonnes of jet fuel for November 21-22 delivery into Colombo from Total Singapore at 66 cents per barrel over respective Singapore prices.

Cossack oil platform to restart: Woodside Petroleum Ltd said on Monday it expected to reconnect its Cossack/Pioneer oil production platform off the coast of Western Australia in the next day or two. The 85,000 barrel per day vessel had been disconnected from its moorings and the facility shut-in on Friday to escape the path of cyclone Billy, which has since passed. "We'D Expect to be back in a day or two," a Woodside spokesman told Reuters. Earlier on Monday, The Broken Hill Pty Co Ltd said its 58,000 bpd Griffin offshore facility would be back in production by Tuesday.Two other fields affected by the cyclone, Thevernard and Barrow islands, operated by the West Australian Petroleum Pty Ltd (WAPET) resumed production on Saturday, a WAPET spokesman said. Apache Energy on Friday said its 18,000 bpd Stag field had been shut in on Thursday, but it was difficult to know how long the shut-in would last. Telephone calls on Monday to Apache's Perth offices were not returned. Winds associated with the cyclone had largely dissipated after the storm touched land on Sunday, the Bureau of Meteorology said. Another cyclone, named Thelma, has been detected off the northern coast of Australia near Darwin, a bureau spokesman said. The cyclone was moving West and was expected to be situated off the Western Australia coast next week, he said.

Indonesia buys diesel: Indonesia has bought only two gas oil cargoes of 600,000 barrels each for January and was looking for one more cargo at most, traders said on Monday. The purchase compares with earlier expectations that Indonesia would buyup to three million barrels or five cargoes in January, matching its bumper purchases in November and December. Traders said both January cargoes were purchased from the Kuwait Petroleum Corp (KPC) at around flat to five cents per barrel premium over Singapore prices for delivery into Teluk Semangka. "I didn't think it was going to be a big one, so I am not surprised," one trader with a western oil company said. In November, Indonesia's state-owned Pertamina bought seven cargoes of gas oil totalling 4.2 million barrels and in December, the oil firm bought 3.6 million barrels. "But that was when they had space to keep (the cargoes).You remember for many months they had not bought anything," the trader said. Stronger gas oil imports in the past two months were also due to a stronger rupiah against the dollar, coupled with the month long shutdown of the 85,000 barrel-per-day (bpd) Dumai refinery for maintenance from November 20, traders said.

Liffe cocoa seen heading lower: Liffe cocoa is marginallyoversold, but the market is so weak that it is unlikely to manage a bounce, technical analysts said. Traders called it to open unchanged. "Cocoa looks likely to test support at 971 (stg a tonne) and966, which will set a downside objective of 944," said Fiona Tait, a technical analyst at Sucden. "We are marginally oversold, but with such a weak market, a bounce is unlikely at this stage." Resistance was seen at 993, 996 and 1,000. New York cocoa futures finished moderately lower on Friday,weighed down by origin selling and light trade and speculative profit-taking. The New York CFTC Commitment of Traders report released after the close of business on Friday showed a net speculative short position of 14,567 lots -- 1,446 lots more than the 13,121 two weeks ago. The increase was well within the expectations of traders,who had forecast a net speculative short position of some 15,000 lots.

Indonesian rubber steady: Indonesian rubber prices were stable on Monday amid little buying interest while theInternational Natural Rubber Association (INRO) remained absent from the market. Dealers said business was slow amid sluggish demand from consumers. "Sentiment in the market is getting weaker than ever. We have no choice but to rely on Inro to prop up prices," said one Jakarta-based trader. February SIR20 rubber was quoted at 26.00 US cents/lb fob Medan, Padang and Surabaya and at 25.50 fob Palembang and 25.75 fob Jambi and Pontianak. Traders said they saw strong indications that Inro would enter the market soon, although some said they did not regard intervention as a major factor. "Inro is only capable of buying rubber in small amounts,the most they can buy is around 10,000 tonnes," said one trader in Padang. Inro bought small quantities of Malaysian and Thai rubber last month. The group last bought 8,000 tonnes of Indonesian rubber in September for November shipment.

Textile expo begins: India-tex'98 - a textile exhibition-cum-sale began with much fanfare on Monday here at Asia's largest textilemarket, Mulji Jetha market in south Mumbai. The exhibition-cum-sale will conclude on December 11. It has been jointly organised by the Mumbai Textile Merchants' Mahajan and Shri Market Silk Merchants' Association. According to Mahajan president Surendra Savai, around 1,000 shops of Mulji Jetha Market, LK Market, Hanuman Gali and Vithalwadi Champa Gali have been transformed into stalls.

Cautious outlook for wool: The easing in prices on the final day of selling last week adds a degree of caution to the outlook of the Australian wool market this week, brokers and market analysts said. "While the market will find some support from buyers who have orders to fill in the two weeks of sales before the Christmas recess, large quantities on offer are likely to test prices," woolbroker Wesfarmers Dalgety Ltd said. The AWEX eastern market indicator fell five cents last week to finish at 507 cents kg clean. Strong interest for fine and superfine wool is expected to be present this week at sales in Launcestonwhich should support this end of the market, Wesfarmers said. Sales continue this week in Sydney, Launceston and Fremantle, with a total of 94,026 bales rostered for sale.