India’s commodity markets are opening the week with a sharply divided picture on Monday, March 30, 2026, as the West Asia conflict enters its fifth week with no resolution in sight and Iranian strikes on Gulf aluminium facilities add a new dimension of supply disruption to an already severely stressed global commodity environment. Here is the complete MCX snapshot and the news driving each move.
MCX Commodity Prices — March 30, 2026
MCX Silver: ₹2,26,482 per kg, down ₹1,472 or 0.65 percent. MCX Gold: ₹1,45,700 per 10 grams, up ₹1,418 or 0.98 percent. MCX Copper: ₹1,148.20 per kg, down ₹2.20 or 0.19 percent. MCX Zinc: ₹317.45 per kg, up ₹2.10 or 0.67 percent. MCX Crude Oil: ₹9,568 per barrel, up ₹173 or 1.84 percent. MCX Natural Gas: ₹278.5 per MMBtu, down ₹11.2 or 3.87 percent. MCX Aluminium: ₹347.85 per kg, up ₹8.20 or 2.41 percent.
The Biggest Story Today — Iranian Strikes Hit Gulf Aluminium Facilities
The commodity story dominating Monday morning is aluminium. Iranian strikes over the weekend hit two of the Middle East’s most significant aluminium production sites, sending the metal sharply higher and raising fears of a global supply shock that goes well beyond the Strait of Hormuz energy disruption that has dominated commodity markets since late February.
Emirates Global Aluminium, the region’s largest aluminium producer, reported significant damage at its Abu Dhabi facility following the strikes. Aluminium Bahrain, known as Alba, said it was assessing the extent of the damage to its operations. The timing is particularly damaging for Alba because the company had already shut down 19 percent of its 1.6 million tonne per year capacity earlier this month due to shipping disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz. The latest strikes compound an operational crisis that was already well underway.
The Middle East accounts for approximately 9 percent of global aluminium supply. Iranian strikes on the region’s two largest production facilities simultaneously introduce a supply shock risk that aluminium markets had not been pricing in before the weekend. Global aluminium futures in London are expected to rise sharply when trading opens, with MCX aluminium’s 2.41 percent gain on Monday morning already reflecting Indian market participants pricing in the disruption news.
Adding a further layer of raw material risk, Guinea is actively considering introducing bauxite export quotas. Bauxite is the primary raw material for aluminium smelting, and Guinea is one of the world’s largest bauxite exporters. A quota restriction from Guinea, even if moderate in scale, would tighten raw material availability for global smelters at the same moment that two of the world’s largest aluminium production facilities are assessing strike damage.
Gold Up — Diverging From Silver as Rate and Geopolitical Forces Pull in Opposite Directions
MCX Gold is up 0.98 percent to ₹1,45,700, continuing a pattern of modest recovery after the metal fell more than 15 percent from its March peak. Globally, gold fell nearly 1 percent to around $4,450 per troy ounce on Monday as the conflict entered its fifth week without resolution, but MCX gold in rupee terms is managing a positive session due to the rupee’s continued weakness amplifying dollar-denominated price moves.
The gold market is navigating a specific contradiction. The Iran conflict and the Houthi escalation over the weekend, with Yemen-based militants joining the conflict and targeting Israel, are geopolitical factors that would normally support gold as a safe-haven asset. However the same conflict is driving oil prices higher, which feeds inflation expectations, which reinforces rate hike fears, which make zero-yield gold less attractive relative to interest-bearing assets. Markets are now pricing in a potential Federal Reserve rate increase this year, a sharp reversal from earlier expectations for two rate cuts in 2026. That rate repricing is the primary force keeping gold’s recovery capped even as geopolitical tension intensifies.
A reversal in central bank buying, which had previously supported gold’s rally to its March peak near $5,600 per troy ounce, is providing additional headwind as major economies boost liquidity to counter the economic impact of the Iran war, reducing the institutional demand that had been one of gold’s most reliable support mechanisms through late 2025 and early 2026.
Silver Down — The Rate Sensitivity Story Continues
MCX Silver is down 0.65 percent to ₹2,26,482 per kilogram, continuing its underperformance relative to gold as the metal’s dual nature as both a precious metal and an industrial commodity works against it in the current environment. Globally, silver fell nearly 2 percent toward $68 per troy ounce on Monday, and the metal is now down almost 30 percent from its March peak, a larger decline than gold’s 15 percent fall from peak levels.
Silver’s steeper decline relative to gold reflects its greater sensitivity to the rate hike expectations that the oil price shock has generated. Silver has a larger industrial demand component than gold, which means rate hike fears, which signal slower economic growth, hit silver through both the monetary policy channel and the industrial demand channel simultaneously. The Houthi militants’ weekend strikes on Israel and their stated capacity to target Red Sea shipping and Saudi Arabian energy infrastructure add further uncertainty to the conflict trajectory without providing the safe-haven lift that gold occasionally receives from escalation news.
Crude Oil Up — The Fifth Week of Conflict Drives WTI Above $100
MCX Crude Oil is up 1.84 percent to ₹9,568 per barrel, tracking global crude’s continued elevated position as the Strait of Hormuz remains blocked and the conflict shows no signs of resolution. Front-month WTI crude futures are trading 2.1 percent higher at $101.68 per barrel while front-month Brent crude futures are 2.6 percent higher at $115.49 per barrel according to Phillip Nova analyst Priyanka Sachdeva’s Monday research note.
Sachdeva’s note captures the situation with precision. “The pain of the US-Iran conflict is being felt with every scarce barrel of oil impacting businesses, air travel, fuel at the pump, and more,” the senior market analyst states. She adds that the projection of oil prices depends heavily on how long the Strait of Hormuz closure continues, while investors are additionally worried about any long-term damage to critical oil infrastructure from ongoing Iranian and allied strikes. The US military’s reported preparation for weeks of ground operations in Iran, following the arrival of additional troops in the region over the weekend, is the development adding the most acute near-term uncertainty to crude oil’s directional outlook.
For Indian markets, Brent crude at $115.49 means the Indian Crude Basket, which tracks the specific mix of crude grades India imports, remains at levels that make OMC losses of approximately ₹49 per litre structurally unavoidable at current frozen retail fuel prices.
Natural Gas Down — The US-Global Divergence Continues
MCX Natural Gas is down 3.87 percent to ₹278.5 per MMBtu, the largest percentage mover among commodities in Monday’s session and a reflection of the US natural gas market’s unusual insulation from the global LNG price crisis. US natural gas futures fell to $2.93 per MMBtu after four consecutive sessions of gains as traders assessed updated weather forecasts showing slightly cooler but still above-seasonal-average temperatures through the end of March.
The EIA reported a larger-than-average storage withdrawal last week, but analysts widely expect it to be the final significant draw of the winter season as warmer weather takes hold. Crucially, while the West Asia war has driven global LNG prices sharply higher amid disruptions to Qatar’s LNG export flows through Hormuz, US natural gas prices remain insulated because the United States produces all of the gas it consumes domestically. LNG export terminals are already running at full capacity, preventing additional exports even as global prices surge, which means the global LNG crisis does not translate into a domestic US gas price spike. This divergence between US domestic gas and global LNG is a structural feature of the current crisis rather than a temporary anomaly.
The Week Ahead
Monday’s MCX commodity picture reflects a market that is processing the fifth week of an unresolved conflict with increasing complexity. The aluminium production facilities strike is a new and significant development that extends the conflict’s commodity market impact beyond energy into industrial metals. The Houthi escalation adds a Red Sea and Saudi infrastructure dimension that could affect shipping routes beyond Hormuz. And the US military’s ground operations preparation signals that the conflict may be entering a new and potentially more intense phase rather than approaching resolution.
For Indian commodity investors, the key variables to watch this week are any developments in the Iran-US diplomatic channel following last week’s rejection of the US 15-point proposal, the extent of damage to Emirates Global Aluminium and Alba facilities and what it means for near-term aluminium supply, and the trajectory of Brent crude as the Strait of Hormuz closure moves into its fifth week with no reopening timeline in sight.
Commodity price data referenced is as of March 30, 2026 during early MCX trading.