By Commodity News Service Canada
Winnipeg, November 27 – The Canadian dollar was lower against its American counterpart at midday Thursday, in the wake of an announcement by OPEC that it would not be cutting oil production to address falling prices.
The loonie was at US$0.8815 or US$1 = C$1.1344 at 11:45 CST Thursday morning.
The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries confirmed production levels would stay at 30 million barrels a day. While prices have fallen almost 30 percent since June, some OPEC officials believe the market will stabilize itself.
On the mining front, Rio Tinto announced a plan to expand its lucrative Diavik diamond mine in Canada. The company will spend US$350 million over four years.On the commodity markets, the February gold contract dipped US$6.30 to $1,191.20 an ounce while March copper was unchanged at US$2.95 a pound. The January crude oil contract fell US$5.00 cents to US$68.69 a barrel.
At 11:45 CST Thursday morning, the Toronto Stock Exchange was down 115.39 points to 14,923.02.
