Commodity Super-Cycle and Decline

https://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – China’s imports of refined base metals have been running at a robust pace this year, with flows of copper, zinc and nickel up on a year ago and the country on track to be a net importer of lead for a second year running.

Six months after the China’s customs department stopped publishing detailed monthly reports via companies such as Reuters, some light has returned to what is happening with the world’s largest metals buyer.

It has done so in the form of a new customs department website with a searchable database for this year’s trade flows. (43.248.49.97/) It’s in Chinese only and decidedly user-unfriendly, but it’s the real thing, cross-checking accurately with the first-quarter figures released under the old distribution system.

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https://uk.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, Australia, Oct 15 (Reuters) – It’s tempting to look at the relative resilience of China’s imports of major commodities in September and conclude that the world’s second-biggest economy is weathering the trade dispute with the United States quite well.

The problem with this view is that while the trade conflict certainly looms as an issue in China’s commodity trade, it’s not yet the driving factor and any strength, or weakness, in various imports is largely a result of different dynamics.

Take copper for example, where imports of unwrought metal in September were 521,000 tonnes, up 24 percent from the 420,000 tonnes in August to the highest in 2-1/2 years.

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https://uk.reuters.com/

LONDON (Reuters) – Donald Trump didn’t make it to LME Week, the annual jamboree of the global metals trading community. But the U.S. president was the hot topic at the myriad seminars, cocktail parties and private meetings across London this week.

The industrial metals traded on the London Metal Exchange (LME) have found themselves at the heart of the escalating trade tensions between the United States and China. Physical supply chains have been stressed by tariffs and, in the case of aluminum, by U.S. sanctions against Russian producer Rusal.

Futures prices have been rocked by waves of speculative selling since the first round of trade tariffs was announced in June. The tension between macro doom and micro strength in markets such as copper has become extreme.

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https://uk.reuters.com/

LAUNCESTON, Australia, Oct 8 (Reuters) – China’s commodity imports may get a shot in the arm from Beijing’s decision to ease credit conditions in the world’s second-largest economy, but it may not be as big a boost as followed prior monetary loosening.

The People’s Bank of China on Sunday announced a steep 100 basis point cut in the level of cash that banks must hold as reserves, matching a similar move in April.

The easing of the reserve requirement ratios (RRRs) will inject a net 750 billion yuan ($109 billion) into the banking system, making it easier for banks to extend credit.

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https://www.mining-technology.com/

With annual revenues often in the tens or even hundreds of billions, mining companies are big business. When mergers or acquisitions occur, they create some of the largest mining powerhouses in the world and can have an everlasting impact on the industry. Here are six of the biggest mining mergers in history.

With annual revenues often in the tens or even hundreds of billions, mining companies are big business. When mergers or acquisitions occur, they create some of the largest mining powerhouses in the world and can have an everlasting impact on the industry. Here are six of the biggest mining mergers in history.

Shenhua Group and China Guodian Corporation: $272.96bn

Two of China’s largest state-owned enterprises (SOEs), Shenhua Group and the China Guodian Corporation, completed a merger on 20 November 2017, valued at almost $273bn. The resulting entity, the China Energy Investment Corporation, became the world’s largest organisation in the coal mining, thermal power, renewable energy, and coal-to-liquid conversion industries.

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https://www.bloomberg.com/

Rising U.S.-China trade tensions threaten to curb consumer purchasing power, crimp productivity growth and limit global economic expansion, according to the world’s biggest mining company.

The confrontation between the world’s top two economies, “along with an increasingly unpredictable policy formation process” in some nations, serves to reduce consumer confidence and business certainty, BHP Billiton Ltd. said Tuesday in its annual report. Protectionist policies and political uncertainty lower the achievable ceiling for global economic growth, it said.

Melbourne-based BHP released the report before the Trump administration’s decision to impose a 10 percent tariff on about $200 billion of Chinese goods next week and to more than double the rate in 2019.

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https://www.bloomberg.com/

Industrial metals fell for a second day on concern that the escalating U.S.-China trade war will hurt prospects for demand in the biggest users.

The Bloomberg Industrial Metals Subindex, which tracks aluminum, copper, nickel and zinc, slipped 0.8 percent as the market braced for a new round of U.S. tariffs on about $200 billion more in Chinese products that’s seen spurring retaliation from Beijing.

Aluminum’s losses also came as the U.S. Treasury softened the impact of sanctions on Russian supplier United Co. Rusal. Metals have been under pressure for months as the U.S.-led trade war fans concern that the showdown will derail otherwise-strong economic growth in the world’s two largest economies.

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Mining Review Africa

China will remain a key driver of global commodity demand but India – the world’s fastest growing economy – and Indonesia’s emergence as Asia’s new rising tiger – will put added pressure on minerals supply.

Speaking at the Paydirt 2018 Africa Down Under mining conference in Perth, EMR Capital Executive Chairman, Owen Hegarty, warned that future resources supply would be constrained. “Investment in the sector remains at trough levels,” Hegarty said.

“Future supply constraints will parallel the more than halving in minerals exploration spend, particularly for the global non-ferrous exploration budget. “And this at a time the global economy itself remains healthy.”

Hegarty pointed to genuine fears about impacts on resources commodities of a trade war between majors and the United States – with copper pundits pricing in a greater than 0.5% drag on global growth due to the uncertainy about economic policy within the resources powerhouses.

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