China used to call Russia its ‘older brother’. However, never again since the fall of the USSR. In an effort to portray its status as a less powerful yet assuredly more senior neighbour, Russian officials have recently begun referring to their country as China’s ‘elder sister’. The new term has proven less popular in China.
During this year’s G7 summit, Japan announced its vision of creating a LNG market to meet increasing energy demand. Natural resource markets are a foundation for trade and economic development. What is less well known is the close link between the natural resource markets and the currency markets.
Saudi Arabia and Iran may yet come to terms on some sort of production arrangement, but the outcome of the negotiations in Algeria this week may not do much to rescue oil prices. Following the media spectacle, the oil markets may have to shift their attention back to the supply and demand fundamentals, which are not reassuring.
The late-2014, Saudi-initiated oil-price war may have taken the ‘boom’ out of the US shale industry as it seriously threatened OPEC market share, but Saudi victory has been elusive: US shale has proven amazingly resilient. The industry has adapted quickly to the new playing field, and the unsung hero of a new uptick in drilling and investment isn’t just true grit—it’s sand.
In most financial market contexts, crude oil maintains its position as one of the most actively traded commodities in the world. In futures markets, light sweet crude oil is the most commonly traded futures contract, and price trends in these areas can be a great indicator of how commodities as a whole are likely to trade in the near-term. Over the last year, we have seen some historic price movements in oil and precious metals. Here we will look at some of the factors that
Oilfield services, shipbuilders and other industries that rose with the pre-2014 oil price boom have had it hard. Since barrel rates fell, their previous patrons have become uninterested in doling out major purchase orders, leaving oil and gas equipment manufacturers without revenues.
China was responsible for 25 percent of global carbon dioxide emissions in 2012. According to World Bank research, cities consume more than 65 percent of global energy and emit some 70 percent of greenhouse gases. Transforming cities into ‘low-carbon cities’ will therefore be an important policy tool in mitigating climate change.
Oil has broken down further today. The ostensible trigger was the larger than expected build in US inventories. However, the price of oil has been trending lower since the beginning of last week. It appears that our skepticism of talk of an output freeze is gaining support.
The Saudis have indicated that they do not see a need for action, while the Iranians have not yet returned output to pre-embargo levels.
The collapse of oil prices has ground shale drilling to a halt, but the one region where drilling is still active, and even increasing, is in West Texas.
We have gone electric, and there is no going back at this point. Lithium is our new fuel, but like fossil fuels, the reserves we are currently tapping into are finite—and that is what investors can take to the bank.
You may think lithium got too popular too fast. You may suspect electric vehicles are too much buzz and not enough real future. You may, in short, be a lithium skeptic, one of many. Yet, despite this skepticism, lithium demand is rising steadily and sharply, and indications that a shortage may be looming are very real.
