World oil benchmarks post 3rd weekly gain
Oil prices fell on Friday, but both benchmarks logged a third straight weekly gain amid the easing of US-Chinese trade tensions, which has boosted business confidence and the outlook for global economic growth.
Brent LCOc1 crude futures settled at $66.14 a barrel, down 40 cents, or 0.6%, but marked a weekly rise of around 1.4%. US West Texas Intermediate crude CLc1 futures settled at $60.44 a barrel, falling 40 cents, or 1.21%, while gaining about 0.6% on the week.
Progress in the trade dispute between the world’s two biggest oil consumers has raised expectations of higher energy demand next year.
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Palladium drops, gold subdued
Palladium slumped more than 5% on Friday, erasing more than $100 per ounce in the session, as investors booked profits following a strong record run, while gold prices were subdued as investors remained on the sidelines ahead of the holiday season.
Spot palladium shed 5% to $1,839.47 an ounce in New York trade on track for its biggest percentage fall since early August.
The auto-catalyst metal hit by supply deficit scaled an all-time peak of $1,998.43 an ounce earlier this week. Prices of palladium has risen about 46% so far this year.
Meanwhile, spot gold was little changed at $1,477.40 an ounce, but was on track for a modest weekly rise. US gold futures settled 0.2% lower at $1,480.90 an ounce.
Platinum eased 2.2% to $913.64 per ouce, while silver rose 0.6% to $17.15 an ounce. Silver extended gains into a second week, up 1.4%.
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Coffee bean prices hit 2-year high as Asians drink more
The international price of coffee beans has risen sharply as the world’s biggest suppliers Brazil and Vietnam are expected to cut production in the year to the end of September 2020. Asian demand for coffee is surging.
According to the US Department of Agriculture, Indonesia’s domestic consumption will rise 54percent, Vietnam’s will go up 14percent and China’s will increase 16percent in the five-year period to the end of September 2020. Meanwhile, popular Chinese coffee chain Luckin Coffee increased its total number of stores at the end of the third quarter ended Sept. 2019 to 3,680, representing an increase of 209.5 percent compared to a year earlier. Benchmark near-term arabica coffee futures jumped nearly 30 percent from a recent low in mid-November to around 132 cents per pound, the highest since late September 2017. According to a report by the US Department of Agriculture, Brazil is expected to produce 58 million 60 kg bags of coffee in the year to September 2020, down 2percent from June and 10percent from the year-ago period.
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Pakistan to achieve bumper wheat crop during current season
Owing to multiple factors that include government initiatives to enhance the output of major crops, favorable weather conditions and timely harvesting of seasonal crops, country was expecting to harvest bumper wheat crop of 27 million tons during current season as against the last year’s produce of 24.47 million tons.
Every year delay in harvesting of two major cash crops including sugarcane and cotton were attributed to delay in wheat cultivations and decrease in area under crop sowing, but due to timely intervention of the government the sugarcane crushing season has started by the end of November as 12 sugar mills in Sindh and 4 in Punjab have started sugarcane crushing, said Food Security Commissioner in the Ministry of National Food Security and Research Dr Imtiaz Ahmad Gopang.
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Indian sugar production down
Sugar mills in the country have produced 45.81 lakh tonnes of sugar till December 15, nearly 35 percent less than the 70.54 it produced in the corresponding period the previous sugar season, said a statement from the Indian Sugar Mills Association (ISMA) on Wednesday.
Currently, 406 mills crush sugarcane, as against 473 mills the same period last season. Sugar production in Uttar Pradesh, the No 1 sugar-producing State, was 21.25 lt, nearly 12 per cent more than the 18.94 in the corresponding period last year. The higher production was possible because the UP mills stared crushing a week in advance this year. As many as 119 mills are currently in crushing operation as against 116 mills last year. In Maharashtra, 124 sugar mills are currently in operation and they have produced 7.66 lt of sugar till December 15.
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Turkey’s crude steel production on decline
According to a trade association, in January-November, Turkey’s crude steel production was 30.9 million tons. As said by the Turkish Steel Producers’ Association (TCUD), crude steel output in the country decreased 10.4 percent the first 11 months of 2019 on a yearly basis. In November, the production of crude steel decreased by 15 percent to 2.7 million tons yearly. The Turkish Exporters’ Assembly data showed that, in the January-November period, Turkey’s steel exports were USD12.7 billion and USD993 million previous month.
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US oil industry forsees more mergers, more bankruptcies
The US oil industry shook up the world energy order in the last decade, and now it has been going through a shakeout of its own that is expected to end in more bankruptcies and mergers.
In the early part of this century, an upstart band of US energy producers brought hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking,” technology to the world. It was an American-born innovation that helped turn the US from the world’s biggest importer of oil into, just recently, a net exporter of oil and fuel products.
In the last decade, US oil production boomed as producers used hydraulic fracturing and evolving horizontal drilling technology to extract oil from difficult-to-access places and some fields that had previously been considered nearly tapped out. The US is now producing just under 13 million barrels a day and has become the world’s largest oil producer.