2011 Halftime Report: Oil and Copper
By Frank Holmes
CEO and Chief Investment Officer
U.S. Global Investors
Last week we recapped commoditiesâ performance for the first six months of the year and offered our outlook on gold. If you missed it, you can read it here. This week, weâre discussing our outlook for two other commodities that are poised to have an exciting back half of the year.
Oil Outlook Remains Strong
This year has been eventful for the oil patch. Natural disasters, revolutions, terrorist attacks and political maneuvering kept oil bouncing around $100 per barrel and 3.8 percent higher on the year at the end of June. Despite the volatility and large number of external forces affecting oil prices, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its most recent Oil Market Report that âthe bull run evident since autumn 2010 therefore looks in large part to be justified by supply and demand fundamentals.â
Oil industry analyst PIRA estimates incremental demand will outpace supply by 1.1 million barrels per day on a year-over-year basis during the third quarter of 2011. The U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) says long-term supply/demand drivers indicate the market will remain tight for the foreseeable future as growing demand from emerging economies for liquid fuels and slowing non-OPEC supply growth âmaintain upward pressure on oil prices.â The IEA forecasts oil prices to average $98 per barrel this year and $103 per barrel in 2012.
Oil Demand
The IEA forecasts the world will use 91 million barrels of oil per day in 2012, an increase of 1.5 million barrels per day. The IEA also revised its 2011 oil demand projections upward by 0.2 million barrels per day. Projecting outward to 2016, the IEAâs baseline scenario assumes a healthy 4.5 percent global GDP growth and an average oil price of $103 per barrel. With these assumptions, annual oil demand growth should average 1.2 millions barrels per day through 2016.
Emerging markets are almost entirely the source of this increased demand, with China accounting for 41 percent of demand growth over that time period, the IEA forecast says. The chart illustrates how developing (non-OECD) country oil demand has dramatically increased since the mid-1990s while developed world (OECD) demand has decreased. Through two financial bubbles and a global financial crisis, non-OECD demand has stair-stepped its way to nearly doubling in less than 20 years.
How is this possible? Many non-OECD markets have favorable demographics, rapidly urbanizing populations and industrializing economies that have returned many developing economiesâ GDP growth rates to pre-crisis levels.
Rising incomes have also outpaced rising oil prices and sustained emerging market demand despite a general reduction in subsidies, the IEA says. Rising wealth has also established a new global middle class that the World Bank estimates will be more than 1 billion strong by 2030. In fact, the World Bank was cited in a National Geographic article earlier this year forecasting that for the first time ever, more people in the world will be classified as middle class than poor in 2022. Today, roughly 70 percent of the worldâs population is classified as poor.
Major emerging market countries, such as China, India and Saudi Arabia, have reached the important GDP per capita range ($3,000-$20,000) where oil demand historically âtakes-off.â
China carries the biggest stick among emerging markets when it comes to oil demand. Strict tightening measures from Beijing and rising inflation slowed the countryâs oil demand growth to its lowest level since 2009 in June. However, Chinaâs oil demand is still expected to grow 7 percent this year, which is in line with the countryâs five-year average demand growth rate, according to Deutsche Bank. The summer months have historically been weak periods for oil demand in China but Deutsche Bank estimates growth rates will recover during the fourth quarter.
Chinese auto sales growth has slowed but still registered 10.9 percent year-over-year growth in June. In an interview with Maria Bartiromo for USA Today, Ford CEO Alan Mulally called Chinaâs car market a âvery exciting development.â The company is projecting Chinaâs auto sales will reach 32 million by 2020â28 percent of the entire global market. Ford isnât the only U.S. auto manufacturer tapping into Chinaâs booming auto market; General Motorsâ Buick brand is one of the most popular in the country. According to the Brookings Institute, General Motors sold 10 cars in the U.S. for every one car sold in China in 2004. Today, that figure is nearly 1-to-1.
In the developed world, the outlook for oil demand is less bullish. OPEC says the âausterity measures, combined with high levels of both debt and unemployment, are likely to dent the fragile recovery in major OECD countries.â
While demand growth in OECD countries is underwhelming, consumption rates have recovered from recession lows at a much faster rate than many expected. You can see that OECD demand contributed heavily to the recovery in global oil demand from early 2009 to late 2010. In fact, the developed world contributes little to global oil demand growth but still consumes more than half of the worldâs total demand.
Despite Chinaâs rise, OPEC says the fate of the U.S. economy is the most influencing factor for oil over the next 12 months. Oil demand in the U.S. was revised upward in May and the U.S. economy is forecasted to see 2.5 percent GDP growth in 2011.
PIRA says the U.S. economy is signaling strength in the second half of the year. It cites business capital expenditures as improving, which generally leads to employment gains and increased household consumption. It also expects a 20 percent hike in auto manufacturing output from the second quarter and an increase in consumer spending.
A big determinant of U.S. demand and consumer spending is gasoline prices, which the EIA forecasts to average $3.56 a gallon in 2011âup from $2.78 in 2010. U.S. consumers have already shown to be sensitive to higher prices with total motor gasoline consumption down more than 2 percent on a year-over-year basis during the second quarter. While OPEC expects U.S. gasoline consumption to return to normal rates, OPEC calls it oilâs âwild cardâ for 2012. Gasoline consumption could be negatively impacted by economic turbulence, such as a dip in employment.
This is just a portion of the Outlook for Oil, click here to read about factors constraining supply and why todayâs market is much different than the 1970s.
The Cues for Copper
Copper slightly disappointed investors, ending the first half of the year with a decline of 3.50 percent. Worries about global inflation and, more specifically, the potential slowing of Chinaâs economy weighed on copperâs price. The red metal rose 5 percent quicklyin the new year, but similar to zinc, lead, palladium and platinum prices, declined sharply at the beginning of May.
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Copper Supply
Since the end of June, copper has been slowly inching its way up, with the past three weeks having produced positive results. Part of this rise is due to reduced supply issues. Chile, the worldâs largest copper producer, has been plagued by power outages, strikes, accidents and heavy rains. Reuters recently reported that a âonce in a half century winter stormâ caused more than 12 mines to slow or stop operations after the open pit roads became too slippery in the South American country that mines about one-fifth of the worldâs copper.
The election of Ollanta Humala in Peruâthe second-largest producer of copperâhas also been a drag on copper prices as investors debate the probability of Humala electing a mining-friendly cabinet. As I discussed in âIs Peruâs Humala Jekyll or Hyde for Mining?,â investors have worried the president-elect could retract policies that encourage mining investment.
The announcement came this week that Humala will appoint Luis Miguel Castilla, Peruâs former deputy finance minister, as the new finance minister. Carlos Herrera will lead the mines and energy ministry. However, according to the Financial Times, it is still not clear whether Humala will increase the corporate tax rate paid by miners and enforce tighter state controls. The actions of this leader will have an influence on the direction of copper prices for the remainder of the year.
Copper Demand
In terms of demand, copper is a necessary ingredient for numerous building projects. Electrical power cables, electrical equipment, automobile radiators, cooling and refrigeration tubing, heat exchangers and water pipes all require copper. With all the construction and infrastructure building in China over the past several years, itâs not surprising that this country is the No. 1 world consumer of copper. Itâs estimated that China accounted for nearly 40 percent of global copper consumption last year.
Because of this large demand, similar to our outlook for oil, copper prices hinge on Chinaâs ongoing development. While some have begun to wonder about the health of the countryâs continuing growth and development, Macquarie Research believes that âreal demand in the country remains robust.â
Take developer activity, for example, which Macquarie says has been a huge driver of construction growth in 2011. The media has focused its attention on ghost cities and lagging sales of property in China. Yet Macquarie thinks itâs important to consider the property sales across all different sizes of cities. In its Commodities Comment, subtitled âChinese social house â another reason to buy copper and iron ore,â Macquarie acknowledges a weakness in property transactions in Chinaâs larger cities. This was due to the government restricting investment demand to slow growth. However, these larger cities account for only 20 percent of the total market, says Macquarie.
Conversely, many smaller cities, such as Anquing, Guizhou, Luzhou, Mudanjiang, and Shijiazhuang, have had double-digit year-over-year growth in unit sales so far this year. In the case of Hohhot, the capital city of Inner Mongolia, sales growth has tripled. Government investment has led to urban space increasing from 80 square kilometers in 2000 to 150 square kilometers last year, according to the cityâs government website. Hohhot, which means âgreen cityâ in Mongolian, has grown to more than 2 million people and has become a hub for agriculture and manufacturing.
Most importantly, Macquarie says the tremendous sales activity in these smaller cities indicates âthere has been enough cash to keep construction activity going.â
In addition, Chinaâs social housing project should drive incremental demand for copper. Macquarie indicated that China is âaiming for 10 million social housing units, up from 5.8 million in 2010.â The country has built only 3.4 million units so far this year, but based on Chinaâs habit of exceeding its objectives, Macquarie thinks the target will be met.
Even if the naysayers think Chinaâs growth will slow because of the governmentâs monetary policy restrictions, thereâs consensus among research experts that the countryâs inventory of copper is getting low. Goldman Sachsâ discussion of the copper market indicated that in the second half of 2011, the âwinding down of destocking will lead to a stronger Chinese pull on global supply.â China seems to have no choice but to go back to the market for copper, if only to replenish its supply.
Tom Kendall, Credit Suisseâs vice president for commodities research, agrees. In a Mineweb interview on copperâs fundamentals and expectations of further growth, Kendall stated he has seen a âvery sizeable drawdownâ in Chinese copper inventories this year. He goes on to say, âsome point in time, they will get to a point at which they have run down inventory levels to an uncomfortably low level and then there is no alternative to coming back to the international market.â