Commodity update 79

Oil prices responded to the news message of an US airstrike in Syria last week accordingly. The USA reacted thereby to a suspected poison gas attack in Syria. Among other reasons, the price of Brent crude Oil rose in value and peaked at USD 56.08, which is the highest level since the beginning of March. In addition to that, non-scheduled production errors in production plants in Canada as well as Libya boosted the Oil price to the current level. Further on, the political crisis in Venezuela caused worries about additional supply bottlenecks for Oil.

Gold: Descending from fivemonth high

One week before Eastern, Gold prices declined sharply after a fivemonth high. In the first place, Gold reacted to the US air strike in Syria with a jump in price last Friday. The precious metal peaked up to USD 1,269.46 and reached the highest level since November 2016. In the following weeks to come, the Gold price might be guided by expectations about interest rate increase as well as geopolitical worries and the mood swings of the US-government. However, the future development remains to be seen.

Copper price increases

The price of Copper has increased about 25 percent over the last six month period. Representatives of the copper industry met for the World Copper Conference last week in Santiago de Chile. According to LBBW, most of the mining companies do look positive ahead. Aurora Williams, the Chilean mining minister takes the view that striking miners could limit the supply of copper and thus, potentially increase the Copper price. However, additional Copper exports from Indonesia could lead to ease the shortage supply again. Further development remains to be seen.