(raw materials / closing price /% change)

Light Crude 92.96 -0.12%

Gold 1,226.10 -0.07%

West Texas Intermediate and Brent crudes dropped as a stronger dollar curbed the appeal of commodities to investors looking for a store of value.

Futures dropped as much as 0.9 percent in New York and 1 percent in London. The dollar reached a six-year high against the yen after the Federal Reserve increased its outlook for interest rates. Libya's Sharara field, the country's biggest-producing asset, was shuttered while a strike by oil workers in Nigeria entered a third day.

"The focus has been on interest rates and that's pushed the dollar higher, which is hurting demand for commodities," Phil Flynn, senior market analyst at the Price Futures Group in Chicago, said by phone. "Oil would be much lower if not for the trouble in both Libya and Nigeria."

WTI for October delivery fell 65 cents, or 0.7 percent, to $93.77 a barrel at 10:14 a.m. on the New York Mercantile Exchange after earlier sliding to $93.62. The volume of all futures traded was 4.7 percent above the 100-day average for this time of day. Prices have decreased 4.7 percent this year.

Brent for November settlement fell 82 cents, or 0.8 percent, to $98.15 a barrel on the London-based ICE Futures Europe exchange. Volumes were 14 percent lower than the 100-day average. The European benchmark crude was at $5.51 premium to WTI for the same month.

Gold prices on Thursday fell to a minimum of 8.5 months at the expense of strengthening the dollar after the Fed meeting. Later in the session, the precious metal was able to regain lost ground after the release of statistical data the United States.

Federal Reserve continues to believe that the near-zero interest rates will be needed for a "substantial period of time", and is still concerned about the weakness of the labor market. In this case, the central bank made ​​it clear that when interest rates start to rise, this process can be faster than analysts suggest.

"Improving the prediction rates of the Fed at the end of 2015 and 2016 may be an obstacle to the rise in gold prices in the future," - wrote in the report, analysts HSBC.

Dollar exchange rate on Thursday rose to a six-year high against the yen and a maximum of four years to a basket of major currencies.

"From a technical point of view, there is a real possibility that the market is closer to the psychological level of $ 1,200 and $ 1,180 a critical level in the coming days or weeks," - said a dealer MKS Group Jason Cherizola.

Support prices may have increased demand in the physical market of Asia as it approaches quotations to $ 1,200. Surcharges in China on Thursday rose to $ 05.06 per ounce to the price in London from $ 4 on Wednesday.

In addition, according to statistics released Thursday, the number of initial claims in the United States last week fell to the lowest in two months, and the number of new buildings in the country in August decreased by 14.4% in monthly terms, against the expected decline of 5.2%. However, in July, according to revised data, the number of new homes totaled 1.117 million on an annualized basis, the highest since November 2007.

The cost of the October gold futures on the COMEX today dropped to 1215.7 and then rose to 1227.3 dollars per ounce.