Filtered by Subscriptions: Commodities Use setting Commodities
Industrial metals demand will recover this year, boosted by rate cuts and a bit of a recovery in economic growth in advanced economies. That said, recovering supply will cap price rises for some metals, such as aluminium and nickel. Policies outlined at …
8th March 2024
The rally in the spot price of gold this week to a new record high of over $2,170 per ounce was the result of several financial and macro drivers that should generally keep prices elevated over 2024. Investors grew more confident that the Fed would begin …
The preliminary China trade data released today suggest that China’s commodities demand was robust in the first two months of the year. Crude imports should stay elevated, but iron ore and coal imports may trend lower over the next few months. Growth in …
7th March 2024
China’s government is planning further fiscal loosening and hinting at rate cuts this year, with the aim of boosting economic activity. We think the policy backdrop is sufficient to support commodities demand this year, although for metals used in …
6th March 2024
Despite OPEC+’s decision to extend its voluntary production cuts until the end of June, we still forecast oil prices to drop back by end-2024. We continue to expect OPEC+ to raise output in the latter half of the year and other producers will plug the gap …
4th March 2024
The green transition will deal a significant blow to EM oil producers that have failed to save their windfalls (Nigeria, Colombia, Angola), but boost the export revenues of economies such as Chile and South Africa that are endowed with the raw materials …
Cut, cut, cut … oh no, we’ve lost market share According to reports, OPEC+ members will make a decision in the coming week on whether to extend their voluntary production cuts. A number of possibilities have been mooted, ranging from extending cuts for …
1st March 2024
China’s PMI surveys suggest that manufacturing activity held steady in February and are consistent with stable, if unexciting, growth in commodity demand. That said, we continue to expect a near-term pick-up in activity owing to policy support, which may …
We think that the gold price will rise in each of the next couple of years, driven by the Fed cutting rates a little quicker than is priced into markets, falling US Treasury yields and a softening US dollar. The gold price has taken a small leg-down since …
Although the US’ trade in electricity with Canada and Mexico is small compared to its overall energy trade, it should grow as clean energy capacity rises and grid connections improve. Canada should continue to be a net exporter as hydropower flows south …
28th February 2024
Given the signs that cyclical and structural forces will raise tin demand this year, set against a backdrop of tightening supply due to the mining ban in Myanmar, we forecast the tin price to rise in 2024. The tin price has, for the most part, been …
There was no clear direction to prices this week, but a number of individual commodities benefitted from producers announcing cuts to supply. First signs of a pull-back in US natural gas supply Having plummeted in recent weeks, the price of US natural gas …
23rd February 2024
Output falls slightly but doesn’t signal a downward trend The year-on-year contraction in global steel production in January masks a sizeable monthly increase in output in China and India. Production in both countries should grow further over the next few …
Carbon price not out of the woods yet …
22nd February 2024
This report is the third of a three-part mini-series that establishes a framework for assessing the outlook for the EU carbon price. It takes an in-depth look at the various factors that typically drive the EU carbon price in the short term. While supply …
This report is the second of a three-part mini-series that establishes a framework for assessing the outlook for the EU carbon price. It sets out our approach for modelling the fundamental price of an EU carbon permit [1] over the rest of this decade. In …
This report is the first of a three-part mini-series that establishes a framework for assessing the outlook for the EU carbon price. It starts by explaining what an emissions trading scheme (ETS) is and how the ETS has evolved since its introduction in …
Production growth to remain subdued in 2024 Global aluminium production was unchanged in January compared to December. This reinforces our view that production growth will soften this year. According to the International Aluminium Institute, global …
20th February 2024
The plunge in natural gas prices breathed some life into what was otherwise a relatively quiet week in commodity markets. Prices have fallen heavily in most major gas markets as stocks remain high for this time of the year. In the US, the House of …
16th February 2024
Higher aluminium prices and lower production costs should incentivise Europe’s smelters to restart some production in both 2024 and 2025. The introduction of CBAM in 2026 means prices will then probably trade at a premium to other regions, particularly as …
15th February 2024
The precipitous drop in US natural gas prices won’t persist for the rest of the year. Prices should rise by Q4 as US production growth slows and LNG exports rise. US natural gas prices have collapsed recently, falling around 18% week-on-week and 23% …
14th February 2024
The effects of El Niño will cause cocoa harvests in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana, which account for more than half of global output, to fall by around 20% this year. But the related surge in cocoa prices means that, if anything, overall incomes are likely to …
We think the huge expansion in nickel supply will keep the market balance in a sizeable surplus this year. Accordingly, we don’t think the price will muster a recovery from its recent slump. The nickel price has been under consistent downward pressure …
12th February 2024
The price of cocoa was the star performer this week in commodity markets , rising by 16% on the week. The price has risen by 40% since the start of this year, on the back of consistently poor harvests in Côte d’Ivoire and Ghana. Meanwhile, conflict in the …
9th February 2024
After a sweet start to the year, sugar prices should take on a more sour note over the rest of 2024. Prices will fall back as El Niño comes to an end and the supply outlook improves but any relaxation of India’s sugar export curbs will only be modest. …
8th February 2024
Chile is frequently identified as one of the main beneficiaries of global efforts to put economies on a greener footing, but we doubt that the country will reap the full benefits of this trend. Chile is likely to struggle to substantially raise copper and …
6th February 2024
Oil prices are likely to remain buffeted by supply fears as long as the conflict in the Middle East continues. However, we think there will be support on the demand side later in the year as monetary policy in most major economies is loosened. By …
Energy prices have so far shrugged off disruptions to shipping in the Red Sea and the risk of wider conflict in the Middle East. If energy production continues to be largely unaffected, we expect most prices to fall further by the end of the year. Greater …
5th February 2024
We have revised down our forecast for US natural gas prices this year, as the outlook for domestic supply has improved. In the near term, a perfect storm of impediments to exports has emerged and sent spot prices tumbling. Henry Hub was down by over 20% …
2nd February 2024
Industrial metals demand will recover this year, boosted by rate cuts and stabilising economic growth in advanced economies. In addition, construction activity in China is robust and we think support for property developers will stabilise the sector and …
China's PMI surveys showed some signs of strengthening in January. But we still think they understate the strength of metals demand, which we expect to hold up fairly well this year. The latest China PMI surveys continue to tell slightly different …
1st February 2024
We forecast that global lithium demand will roughly double by 2025 (from 2022). But supply will increase at a slower pace, which is why we forecast that prices will rise. Demand for lithium has surged in recent years, from 50,000 tonnes per year in …
31st January 2024
Saudi Arabia has cut oil output significantly over the past year or so but that hasn’t prevented global oil prices from falling. Despite Aramco’s announcement today that it is postponing plans to raise production capacity to 13mn bpd, we think looming …
30th January 2024
JODI data on global oil and natural gas consumption paint a nuanced picture of global energy demand. While oil demand growth slowed towards the end of last year, consumption of natural gas was recovering from the worst of the energy price crisis. We …
29th January 2024
It was generally a positive week for commodity prices and particularly for industrial metals prices. (See Chart 1.) All major industrial metals finished the week higher, with gains in the region of ~5% for some such as tin and zinc. Chart 1: S&P GSCI …
26th January 2024
Output stagnant last year, more of the same in 2024 Global steel production reportedly stagnated last year. We think it probably will again in 2024 as a drop in production in China should offset increasing output by most other producers. According to the …
25th January 2024
Compared to their pre-pandemic averages, metals prices are high even after adjusting for inflation. We think that as green transition-related demand increases and monetary easing gets underway, real metal prices have further to rise in the coming years. …
This is a special Global Economics Chart Pack that provides clients with key analysis to make sense of the macro and market impact of the disruptions to maritime shipping. The charts in this document come from our brand-new shipping dashboard , which …
Production growth will probably soften further in 2024 Global aluminium production growth slowed to 2.3% in 2023 from 2.9% in 2022. We think softening output growth in China will cause global growth to fall back again this year. According to the …
22nd January 2024
Why are natural gas markets so sanguine? Qatar’s decision to avoid sending LNG tankers through the Red Sea, and the continued exchange of military strikes between the US and Houthis did little to stop natural gas prices falling this week. In Europe prices …
19th January 2024
After a subdued 2023, we think the copper price will fare much better this year. We expect supply growth to moderate, while demand growth will be bolstered by the green transition. The copper price ended 2023 almost flat on the year. Consumption growth, …
Energy prices seem historically high at first glance. However, that is not strictly the case. After adjusting for inflation, oil and US natural gas prices are already at or below pre-pandemic levels. Meanwhile, gas prices are still very high in the EU and …
Following a period of upward pressure on renewable and battery costs in recent years, the tide is turning once again. This partly reflects declines in key input costs such as lithium, as well as huge growth in global manufacturing capacity, particularly …
18th January 2024
The downward trend in the EU carbon price since early 2023 has been driven by lower demand for pollution permits on the back of industrial weakness and growth in cleaner energy sources. With energy-intensive activity in the bloc set to stay weak, and …
17th January 2024
Perhaps surprisingly, the latest escalation in Middle East tensions has not prompted a surge in oil prices. We think this is because, so far, oil output is unaffected. Moreover, we suspect it also reflects concerns about weak demand, strong supply growth …
16th January 2024
The Middle East continued to be the focus of commodity markets although most prices ended the week either relatively unchanged or lower. The escalation of Houthi attacks on shipping and subsequent retaliatory military strikes by the US and UK did support …
12th January 2024
China’s commodity imports were generally strong in 2023 and while growth rates will probably slow this year, we expect volumes to remain high in the coming months. China’s export volumes edged up in December and remained close to a record high fuelled …
The surge in US exports of energy over the coming five years will ensure that the US remains a major supplier of fossil fuels to the rest of the world. A large proportion of these exports will be LNG, as new export terminals come online. But exports of …
10th January 2024
This week was a mixed bag for commodities . Gold and silver prices fell as US interest rate expectations rose and the dollar strengthened. By contrast, natural gas prices in the US and Europe edged higher on the back of forecasts for colder weather in the …
5th January 2024
Commodities Overview Chart Pack (Jan. 2024) …
