1. Copper prices rebound
- Copper prices rebounded this week, on news that there was some progress on the coronavirus.
- “Although we regarded the price slide beforehand as exaggerated, the current optimism has come somewhat suddenly,” Commerzbank said in a note on Wednesday.
- The crisis is far from over. “For as long as the virus continues to spread and the number of those infected and the number of deaths continue to rise rapidly, we see further potential for prices to fall again,” the bank added.
- The backup at the ports is causing supply chain disruptions for all types of commodities. “This is also affecting China’s largest copper smelters: the second-largest announced [Wednesday] that it will be reducing its refined copper production by 10-30% because raw material supplies are constrained, and because of insufficient personnel,” Commerzbank said.
2. Libya outage helps “Call on OPEC”
- OPEC production declined to 28.3 mb/d in January. The two red-dashed lines in the chart above from Standard Chartered show two scenarios for the rest of the year. In one scenario, Libyan oil production stays disrupted, producing at about 0.1 mb/d through 2020. In the other, production rebounds to 1.1 mb/d.
- “In the worst case (with 2020 demand growth reduced by 0.7mb/d) and with Libyan output restored quickly, the H1 stock build is 1.776 mb/d, which appears too large for…
