Brent crude proved the strongest resilience among commodities on Thursday and despite general sell-off posted solid gains. The chairman of Libya’s national oil company, Nouri Berouin, told Reuters he expected that Gaddafi’s dead would hasten the return of Libya’s oil to the market. Berouin also added that the oil output had risen to 430 thousand barrels per day, i.e. to about 25% of pre-war production level.
Today, figures on German Ifo index came more or less on line with expectations. Hence, rumours and headlines on expected measures at the EU summit will continue to be the most important driver for trading. The Franco-German communiqué (Germany and France released a statement that EU leaders will discuss the debt plan on Sunday before adopting it on Wednesday at latest) more or less ‘guarantees’ that nervous, erratic-like trading will continue till mid next week.
Metals
Base metals complex led losses on Thursday and on average shrunk by 4.55 %. Regarding the strike at Indonesian Grasberg copper mine, the company resumed wage talks with workers. Nevertheless, ongoing strike and its impact on copper supply has been overshadowed by upcoming EU summit. Copper reflected rising nervousness underperformed its peers and dipped by 6.5% (!) which was the largest daily loss in last 30 days. Today in early trading, the metal rebounded and currently is hovering at 7000 USD per ton level.