Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Molybdenum supply won't catch up with demand until 2010 and rising oil prices will only heighten the metal's value, according to a new report from Citi Investment Research, a division of Citigroup Global Markets.
Citi expects molybdenum to trade above $ 30/lb until 2009.
Moving into 2010, the market likely will move into surplus and Citi forecasts the price will drop to about $ 25 per lb.
So far this year, average prices for the metal have climbed 26% in Europe and 8% in China.
And with U.S. crude oil prices recently surging to a record above US$119 a barrel, the outlook for what Citi calls the
"energy metal" will remain strong for Global demand for molybdenum has been growing at about 6% a year during the last five years—higher than the world's industrial production growth of 3-4%.
Citi predicts demand will grow by about 20 million lbs this year with supply only rising 7 million lbs.
Currently only three of the top ten molybdenum miners are primary producers, Citi notes.
But more than 50% of all new supply is expected to come from primary miners rather than by-product producers.
Freeport-McMoRan in the U.S. and Codelco in Chile, two of the largest copper producers in the world, are also the two largest molybdenum producers.
Apart from its use in the steel industry, the metal is commonly used in the oil industry as a chemical catalyst as well as in the building of oil and gas pipelines.
The report points to a 90% correlation between oil and molybdenum prices.
"The molybdenum price reached over US$30 per lb in 1979 due to a surge in oil demand," the bank notes in its April 18 research report.
"That equals to a current inflation-adjusted price of above $ 61/lb, using a 2.5% per annum inflation rate. The current price is still far from its historical high." |
Thread abonnieren
Also laß uns ruhig mal einen zusammen heben. 
Ab Montag ist dann wieder rudern angesagt. 
Ich glaub, da müssen wa wohl wieder mal was anderes
Watt solls... das ist doch auch top 