In other commodity markets, hog prices closed lower ahead of a key US government production report, while rice prices spurted on speculative buying. Orange juice prices shrugged off crop losses in California and closed lower.

At the New York Mercantile Exchange, crude oil for February delivery closed 26 cents higher at $11.72 a barrel, adding to gains seen on Monday on reports that United Nations-backed warplanes had exchanged fire with Iraqi forces in northern Iraq.

Refined products were also firm, with February heating oil ending 0.66 cent a gallon higher at 33.97 cents and February gasoline 0.84 cent a gallon higher at 36.52 cents.

The absence of many oil traders due to the year-end holidays contributed to price swings, traders said. The fact that Iraq continues to pumphuge amounts of oil into the world market even after recent bombardments of military sites and a Basra refinery by US and British planes underscored the ready supplies of oil available.

But with storms and cold weather forecast in the United States this week, traders were more intent on any drops in oil inventories than on Iraq. Traders and analysts said they expected US crude oil stocks to decline by 1.5 million barrels in the weekly American Petroleum Institute report due on Tuesday evening after the market closed.

In the report, the API said crude oil stocks fell 2.36 million barrels in the week ended December 25. But follow through demand may be muted, since traders had also expected declines in stocks of gasoline and distillates, or heating oil and diesel, while the API said those stocks rose.

Elsewhere, hog producers saw a ray of sunshine in a report released on Tuesday afternoon by the US agriculture department. In its quarterly census of the US pig crop, the department said the US herd as ofDecember 1 was 2 per cent above a year ago, at 62.2 million animals.

But it also said farmers had reduced the number of sows kept for breeding purposes by nearly 300,000 head, or 4 per cent, from a year earlier -- a sign that the lowest cash hog prices in 50 years were finally affecting swollen hog production.

``It is certainly the signal we've been looking for, the end of expansion and the beginning of liquidation,'' said an independent livestock trader Mike Downs at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange.

Hog prices at the CME closed lower ahead of the report on profit-taking after several days of gains, but traders said the pig report pointed to break-even prices for farmers by next summer. February hogs closed 0.10 cent lower at 32.30 cents a pound.

At the Chicago Board of Trade, rice prices shot higher as large speculators bought heavily in thin volume. Rough rice for January delivery touched the 30-cent daily trading limit before closing 27 cents higher at $8.94 per hundred pounds.

Traders said therally, ahead of first deliveries on January futures contracts due on Thursday, sparked heavy sales of rice by farmers.

Orange juice prices closed lower despite reports of massive crop damage to California's citrus crop by last week's freeze, estimated by state authorities at $591 million. Traders said California produces 80 per cent of the oranges that US consumers eat as fruit, but only 20 per cent of the total US crop. Florida produces many more of the oranges used by juice makers.

At the New York Board of Trade, frozen concentrated orange juice for January delivery closed 0.50 cent lower at 106.20 cents a pound.