Research Dept. News
|
|
|
|
Monthly Report, num 359 - July-August 2012
|
|
|
International review - Commodities
|
|
|
|
|
Oil prices in free fall
|
|
Oil falls to 90 dollars per barrel, the lowest since December 2010.
|
|
Oil is intensifying its descent. Between 18 May and 22 June, the price of crude fell by 15.8% to 90.49 dollars per barrel (Brent quality, for one-month deliveries), its lowest level since December 2010. Oil price is therefore 15.5% below its level at the start of 2012 and 16.4% lower than its level one year ago, which will pull down the CPI for May and June for most economies.
|
|
|
|
Oil prices are falling due to a combination of three factors: the euro area crisis, the slowdown in China and other emerging economies and the increased production by Saudi Arabia, which remains at the record level of 10 million barrels a day, one third of the total production of all OPEC countries. As from 2013, should there be a recovery in world growth, there should also be a change in the trend for oil prices with moderate rises.
|
|
Metals most affected by China's slowdown.
|
|
The rest of commodities continued to join the downward slide of crude, albeit not so sharply. The CRB index fell by 1.2% between 18 May and 22 June. Among metals, of note was the 10.0% drop in aluminium, particularly affected by energy prices given its energy-intensive production process. Copper, nickel and steel saw minimal drops after their falls in May. Among precious metals, silver was down 5.9% while gold lost 2.1%, standing at 1,562 dollars per ounce. Falls were also prevalent among foods, with wheat losing 5.2%, sugar 3.8% and coffee 14.0%.
|
|
|
|
You can susbcribe now to be nofified by email every time the Monthly Report is updated in the internet.
|
All documents are in Adobe Acrobat format (PDF).
To view a document in PDF format you need the Adobe Acrobat Reader. If you don’t have it already loaded on your computer, you can donwload it now.
|
|
Direct link to the Research Dept. in your mobile
We'll send you a free SMS with the link
|
