The price of the front-month contract on Brent even dipped to 108 USD per barrel (USD/bbl) in intraday trading on Thursday, but Brent eventually settled barely changed as it drew some support from better than expected US initial claims as well as from much better than expected Philly Fed index for July. Meanwhile, WTI gained nearly 1.5 percent and the spread between the front-month Brent and front-month WTI thus dipped below 100 USD and hit the lowest level since October 2010. Clearly, investments in infrastructure in US Midwest help WTI to reconnect with global oil markets. Moreover, bets on further decline between the two crudes seem to have increased over the past few weeks.Base Metals Despite posting small gains on Thursday, copper is set to fell this week after several major companies recently releasedtheir quarterly reports which showed an increase in copper production. Overall sentiment in the market thus remains rather cautious, especially on the backdrop of expected slower China’s GDP growth in quarters ahead.