Commodities Roundup: Copper heats up; Metals shipments decline year over year; Oil price picks up

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Here’s a quick rundown of news and thoughts from particular commodity markets, including the copper bull story, US steel capacity and rising oil prices.

manbetx赢钱网址, a sister site of ours, scours the landscape for what matters. This week:

Copper bull story continues

The copper price继续上升领先的Metalmimanbetx赢钱网址ner Stuart Burns烧毁了重要的金属的牛故事。

“Many bulls are touting the green revolution story as reasons to buy,” Burns wrote. “Automakers’ announcements of impending ends to the internal combustion engine and a total switch to electric has fueled projections of soaring demand.

“Meanwhile, a lack of new mine investment over the last few years leaves the supply landscape short of new projects to meet projected demand.”

Looking ahead, Burns added that while short-term pauses for profit taking would not be a surprise, the overall long-term narrative for copper appears robust.

“So, for investors to take profits and the copper price to fall back should not come as too much of a surprise after such a strong rise in prices,” Burns wrote.

“Furthermore, it does not undermine the longer-term bull narrative for the metal. It does suggest, however, copper consumers think carefully before fixing all their requirements for the year at today’s price.

“也许无情的铜价上升不是给出的。但是，趋势线迄今已强劲。“

Aluminum tariff future

The copper bull narrative is strong — what about aluminum?

Among other departures from his predecessor, President Joe Biden reversed a final-day move by former president Donald Trump with respect to aluminum tariffs.

Biden reimposed the 10% Section 232 tariff on aluminum coming from the UAE, which Trump had rescinded on his final day in office. (Trump originally imposed the blanket Section 232 tariffs on steel and aluminum in 2018.)

Zooming out, however, Burnsweighed in onthe flaws of the aluminum tariff policy and its fate going forward.

“But even accepting that the Covid-19 pandemic made 2020 far from a typical year, it has become clear the tariff strategy has not worked on a number of levels,” he wrote.

“While the inflationary cost of finished goods has been minor, the aluminum content even of a can of beer is a small fraction of the total product cost. It remains true that consumers have had to foot the bill.

“It was always the intention that domestic producers would raise their prices to the import plus tariff price. The corresponding uplift was what was supposed to allow them to operate profitably again, to arrest the decline and reopen idled capacity.”

Steel capacity utilization rises

Meanwhile, the US steel sector’s capacity utilization rateticked up to 77.0%last week.

US steel output for the week ending Feb. 20 totaled 1.75 million net tons, or down 7.2% year over year. The total marked an increase of 0.1% from the previous week.

In other steel indicators, the Federal Reserve’s industrial production index for raw steel reached 92.1730 in December. An index reading of 100 is equivalent to 2012 activity.

Rusal to supply Kosei with low-carbon aluminum

In anothercollaboration between the two companies, Russian aluminum giant UC Rusal will supply aluminum to Japanese automotive component maker Kosei.

“In the last 30 years, Rusal has proved to be a key partner of Kosei,” MetalMiner contributor Sohrab Darabshaw wrote. “Rusal has supplied the Japanese company with primary foundry aluminum alloys. Kosei uses in the material in factories in India, Japan, Thailand and the US.

“作为新交易的一部分，Rusal将以Kosei销售其专有的低碳铝”允许“。允许是一个低发光的铝，每公吨金属熔化，推出约2.4公吨的二氧化碳。同时，与每公吨铝的22公吨二氧化碳的行业标准相比。“

Last week,我们触动了努力among aluminum industry players, including Rusal, to curb emissions from their production processes.

Metals shipments decline

In other news, the Metals Service Center Institutereported metals shipmentsin the US and Canada have gradually recovered but still remain below pre-pandemic levels.

每年1月，美国钢铁货物均在一年同期下降了15.8％。同时，铝制货物跌幅为5.6％。

Oil price gains

The US oil price has continued to rise in recent weeks.

根据能源信息管理局（EIA）数据，WTI原油价格于2月19日上周五收盘，$ 59.24 /桶。在短短几天，价格周三截止至每桶63.22美元，从前一周增加了每桶2.08美元，从一年前增加每桶13.32美元。

According to the EIA, US crude oil inventories were at 461.8 million barrels for the week ending Feb. 12, down by 2.9% from 475.7 million barrels two weeks prior. Crude oil inventories are at about the five-year average for this time of year, the EIA reported.