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Tariffs are now firmly back in the driver’s seat when it comes to commodity prices, with this week bringing fresh news on reciprocal, metals and energy tariffs. Arguably the most straightforward to digest was the confirmation of 50% copper tariffs. While …
1st August 2025
The start of construction on the vast Motuo Hydropower Station in China has understandably got its fair share of media attention this week. When completed, the set of dams along the Yarlung Tsangpo river are expected to generate three times as much …
25th July 2025
Attention returns to sanctions on Russia One of the key themes that developed in the oil market this week was the prospect of additional and tightening sanctions on the Russian energy sector. Indeed, the week began with President Trump threatening on …
18th July 2025
Oil demand will struggle to keep up with OPEC+ The week started with oil traders digesting the news that OPEC+ decided to lift output by 548k bpd in August, putting the group on track to unwind it’s 2.2mn bpd of output cuts by September, one year earlier …
11th July 2025
Surfing the waves of OPEC+ supply The sharp drop back in the risk premium in oil prices in the aftermath of the Israel-Iran ceasefire means that oil market fundamentals have snapped back into focus over the past week or so, particularly with the imminent …
4th July 2025
Oil prices and volatility come full circle Oil price volatility is within touching distance of its five-year average following the ceasefire between Iran and Israel. (See Chart 1.) While the ceasefire could well prove fragile, reported violations early on …
27th June 2025
Mapping out conflict scenarios Much of the focus this week has understandably been on oil markets. Oil prices continued to climb as the Israel-Iran conflict escalated, reaching $76pb from $73 at the start of the week. In particular, the potential for US …
20th June 2025
OPEC+ watches on closely Israeli strikes on Iran and fears over the potential nature of Iranian retaliation sent Brent crude prices from ~$67pb to a peak of $78pb this week. While prices have since fallen back to $75pb at the time of writing, they are …
13th June 2025
OPEC+ frictions will take center stage from here The latest announcement from OPEC+ that it will continue to add oil to the market in July at a faster pace than it had planned a few months prior solidified a marked shift in the group’s output policy. …
6th June 2025
Tariffs: like Ross and Rachel Another week, another episode in what now feels like a long running drama series on President Trump’s tariff agenda. This week’s episode revealed fresh twists and turns as the US Court of International Trade (CIT) ruled that …
30th May 2025
Note: we will be discussing oil, gold, industrial metals, and more in an online briefing on Wednesday 4th June at 3pm BST. You can register here . Not a literal Golden Dome… Gold bugs’ hearts will have skipped a beat when President Trump announced the …
23rd May 2025
US-Iran nuclear deal on the table Despite President Trump’s previous focus on pushing OPEC+ to loosen the taps and lower oil prices, there was surprisingly little explicit talk of oil prices during his trip to the Middle East. Instead, the biggest …
16th May 2025
$50 oil is not a pipe dream Plenty of oil market analysts, including ourselves, have slashed their price forecasts this week following the OPEC+ decision to raise output in June by more than the group had originally outlined for the second month in a row. …
9th May 2025
Riyadh ups the ante ahead of OPEC+ meeting Developments in the oil market once again took centre stage this week, with Brent crude prices set for their second consecutive weekly fall. The biggest news event of the week came courtesy of reports that Saudi …
2nd May 2025
Note: we will be discussing the future of OPEC+, oil prices, and the Gulf in an online briefing on Wednesday 7 th May at 1pm BST. You can register here . Oil relief rally hits wall of supply uncertainty The various tariff-related row-backs and carveouts …
25th April 2025
Lower oil demand forecasts are not low enough The IEA and OPEC both lowered their oil demand forecasts this week, reflecting the impact of Trump’s trade war with the rest of the world, though the forecasts still appear overly rosy. Given the uncertainty …
17th April 2025
Tariffs continue to buffet commodity markets Changes in US tariff policy continued to drive dramatic swings in commodity prices this week – Brent crude oil prices briefly hit a four-year low of $58.5pb in intraday trading on Wednesday. There is still a …
11th April 2025
The aftermath of “Liberation Day” It was notable that most commodities received exemptions from the latest round of US tariffs. Nonetheless, commodity prices have fallen sharply on the back of global growth concerns. See here for our full assessment of …
4th April 2025
Red hot, red metal As it stands, there is still no clarity on when, or indeed if , the US administration will announce tariffs on copper imports. The US Secretary of Commerce, Howard Lutnick, ostensibly has until November to prepare his report on …
28th March 2025
Gold smashes through $3k In what feels a lot like déjà vu at this point, gold set yet another record high this week, this time as it smashed through the $3,000 per ounce mark. The financial press have linked the latest leg up in the price over the last …
21st March 2025
Tariffs drive divergence in metals price outlook The price premium for industrial metals in the US surged in anticipation of the 25% tariffs on steel and aluminum, which were implemented this week. For example, the Midwest premium for aluminum has jumped …
14th March 2025
Discipline difficulties meet demand delusion While we learned this week that OPEC+ is sticking to its plan to gradually raise oil output from April (see here ), question marks over production discipline within the group and the strength of global oil …
7th March 2025
Metals, minerals, and oil are in Trump’s sights There were three key commodity-related developments from the White House this week. First, the US and Ukraine have agreed to jointly develop Ukraine’s energy and mineral reserves. We wrote about the key …
28th February 2025
OPEC+ confusion highlights risks of another delay Another week, another chapter in the book of the ongoing drama around when and whether OPEC+ will start to unwind its voluntary output cuts. Reports early this week suggested that the group was considering …
21st February 2025
Trump-Putin call could ease upside risks for energy President Trump was at the centre of another whirlwind week in commodity markets, with his “lengthy and highly productive” phone call with President Putin giving energy traders in particular plenty to …
14th February 2025
Note: Join us as we discuss how Donald Trump's moves to build out his policy agenda will affect energy, soft commodities, and metals markets in a Drop-in on Thursday 13th February 15:00 GMT/10:00 EST . Register here for the 20-minute online briefing. …
7th February 2025
Metals flows adjust to tariffs & sanctions Industrial metals prices have been buffeted by news of potential trade disruptions this week, as fears of tariffs and sanctions loom large. President Trump has pledged to place additional tariffs on aluminium, …
31st January 2025
Week 1/208: A national emergency and Davos President Trump hit the ground running by declaring a National Energy Emergency on his first day in office. We covered the implications of this for energy markets in this in-depth report here . One of the key …
24th January 2025
US sanctions on Russian energy cause a stir Oil prices had a strong start to the week following the news of further US sanctions against Russia's oil sector. We outlined our thoughts here but in short, the disruption from these sanctions could take time …
17th January 2025
Oil market rally on shaky foundations The recent rise in oil prices has dominated proceedings so far this year; at the time of writing, Brent crude is currently at $79.8pb – up more than 3.5% on the day and more than 11% higher than its December low. For …
10th January 2025
Trump’s strange threat President-elect Trump’s warning to the EU to “…make up [its] tremendous deficit with the United States by the large scale purchase of our oil and gas. Otherwise, it is TARIFFS all the way!!!” will not cause sleepless nights in …
20th December 2024
Cyclical rebound in oil demand will be short lived Energy import growth was an unexpected bright spot in the preliminary Chinese trade data, as imports of crude oil rebounded by 14.3% y/y, after contracting for seven of the last eight months. That comes …
13th December 2024
The decision by OPEC+ to delay unwinding some of its oil production cuts until April 2025 appears to have provided food for thought to both oil bulls and bears. In fact, oil prices yo-yoed as news on the decision trickled in, before falling a touch to …
6th December 2024
Coffee prices at the whim of the weather Fans of hockey-stick graphs would appreciate recent developments in the coffee market, where prices have surged by 30%+ this month . (See Chart 1.) Chart 1: Coffee Prices (2024) Source: LSEG For context, coffee …
29th November 2024
The resilience of commodity trade: a history lesson The election victory of Donald Trump and the prospect of renewed trade restrictions has naturally sharpened attention on the potential impact of tariffs on trade flows, including on commodity trade. Our …
22nd November 2024
Déjà vu for industrial metals While it is uncertain exactly how Trump will approach tariffs during a second term, China will clearly be in the firing line and commodities could be caught in the crossfire. For context, Chart 1 shows the US’s bilateral …
15th November 2024
Taking the long view on President-elect Trump We discussed the implications of a second Trump presidency on commodity markets here . In short, despite his pledges to “drill, baby, drill” and dramatically raise tariffs on China, we suspect that the net …
8th November 2024
The next few weeks promise to be eventful ones for commodity markets. Not only will the US president-elect be confirmed, but we may finally get details on the size of China’s fiscal stimulus as well as confirmation of OPEC+ production policy in 2025. The …
1st November 2024
Having behaved “normally” over the summer, gold has slipped back into anti-traditional-driver mode in recent weeks. The ~4% rise in the gold price since the start of October has come alongside sharp rises in US Treasury yields and the dollar. Soberingly, …
25th October 2024
Fundamental frailties back to the fore The risk premium in oil prices collapsed this week after reports suggested that Israel would not target Iran’s oil and nuclear facilities in any retaliatory strike. Brent oil prices have fallen from a high of around …
18th October 2024
Stimulus bazooka wouldn’t stop prices from falling After investors were disappointed by the lack of major new fiscal stimulus from Chinese policymakers this week, the Ministry of Finance is expected to announce a more sizeable package on Saturday. Since …
11th October 2024
Risk premium takes the reins There are no prizes for guessing the main event of the week in commodity markets: the stark rise in the oil price since Tuesday after it became clear that Iran was readying to launch a missile strike on Israel has dominated …
4th October 2024
The stimulus packages announced by Chinese policymakers were the main reason behind the chunky increases in industrial metals prices this week, and explain why they performed better than most other commodity prices. However, the stimulus measures are no …
27th September 2024
The Fed’s decision to cut interest rates by 50 bp gave most commodity prices a boost this week. We suspect that lower interest rates won’t have a sizeable impact on US commodity demand this quarter and, next year, prices are more likely to be driven by …
20th September 2024
“Gold’s poor cousin” to lag behind For all the attention on gold this year, silver has been the better performer with prices increasing by over 25% year-to-date. Some of the tailwinds that have boosted the gold price, like lower Treasury yields and a …
13th September 2024
Will OPEC+ ever increase output? The big news this week was the decision by some OPEC+ members to extend their voluntary output cuts until December. For context, these producers had originally announced they would begin raising output from next month. …
6th September 2024
Traditional gold drivers pick up the reins Much of the chatter in the gold market this year has been about the role of non-traditional drivers – particularly demand from China – in propelling the gold price higher. (Our latest Commodities Focus , …
30th August 2024
The apparent stall in the ceasefire talks between Israel and Hamas limited the fall in oil prices this week. While we think a deal wouldn’t be a game-changer for oil prices, a further breakdown in talks could cause prices to spike. Meanwhile, data …
23rd August 2024
The strike at the world’s largest copper mine, Chinese export curbs on another critical mineral and the iron ore price tumbling to a yearly low rocked metals and minerals markets this week. While we suspect that global copper prices won’t be too affected …
16th August 2024
It was no surprise to see the global commodity price index fall and rise alongside the contortions in equity markets this week. But commodity prices have not all been in the same boat ; whereas some have remained buoyant throughout, others were already …
9th August 2024
