Today in early trading, Brent crude erased yesterday’s losses and edged above 113 USD per barrel (USD/bbl) despite the fact that China’s headline data on imports and exports for December 2011 released today in early morning rather disappointed. Nevertheless, although dropping by 6.5 percent in comparison with the previous month, crude imports remained vital as they grew by 6 percent on a year-on-year basis. Base Metals Copper and aluminium prices surged by more than one percent today in early trading as China’s General Administration of Customs data for December showed further increase of imports of the two metals. In case of copper, imports even hit an alltime high (see the chart). Nevertheless, imports of the red metal were in 2011 by about 5 percent lower than in 2010. At the time of writing, LME benchmark copper is trading for 7613 USD per ton and 3M aluminium is seen at 2128 USD/t.