Resource Sector Update
We’re looking forward to further strong gains right across the board in the commodity space in 2018 - especially gold, oil, zinc, iron ore, coal, nickel, cobalt and copper. What’s also interesting is that other more obscure metals like lithium, graphite, vanadium, tungsten and rare earths like neodymium, have joined the price party.
The common denominator among these metals is that they are predominantly produced in China and they have all been hit hard by Beijing’s recent environmental crackdown. Chinese premier Li Keqiang pledged at the annual National People’s Congress in March 2017 to make “our skies blue again” - and China is courageously following through strongly on this pledge.
Driving interest at present are speculative developments in the Pilbara region of WA (conglomerate gold), the strong A$ gold price that continues to drive domestic gold producers, growing appreciation of the demand opportunities for a whole host of commodities - lithium, graphite, cobalt, copper, zinc and nickel - related to the burgeoning electric vehicle (EV) industry, as well as price resilience in the bulk commodities - coal, iron ore and bauxite.
From a broader perspective, the global economy is getting stronger and this year is forecast to grow at the fastest pace since 2011, according to the OECD. Expansion will accelerate during 2018, with the biggest economies all contributing.
In the background we have China’s 'One Belt, One Road' initiative. The plan is to build a vast network of new trade routes across the globe, incorporating multiple high-speed rail networks to penetrate Europe, massive ports across Asia and Africa and a series of free-trade zones.
China is going to spend up to a trillion dollars on infrastructure projects and hopes to bind more than 65 countries and two-thirds of the world's population to its economy. It’s a massive global development undertaking that will require enormous commodity usage.
Finally, if President Trump can generate further traction on the policy front, we might see some realisation of his proposed infrastructure renewal spending plans, which would deliver the boost to commodity demand that was anticipated in the wake of his election a year ago.
|