COMMODITIES WEEKLY

巴克莱资本银行 巴克莱资本研究所


　　Volatile risk appetite, nervous sentiment, mixed macroeconomic data and globalgrowth concerns have led to choppy commodity price moves, and with the Greekelections being held over the weekend, sentiment is likely to remain fragile. The keyevent in the oil market this week was the OPEC meeting in Vienna, with the outcomecoming in line with our expectations as quotas were left unchanged and no explicitchange was made to policy. Nonetheless, there remains a strong division among themembers with regards to producing above the quota, with the hawks (which includethe UAE and Kuwait) expressing doubts on how much the recent fall in oil prices willboost the global economy, given the levels of taxation in consuming nations, togetherwith fears that the sovereign debt issue may worsen oil demand significantly and thesurplus OPEC is creating at the margin may worsen unless acted upon now. AlthoughSaudi Arabia opposes most of the precepts of the hawkish approach, aiming to keepprices at around $100 to nurture economic growth and build a buffer against thepolitical unknowns in the coming months, we do not doubt that should the need arise,the kingdom will cut – and that, too, quite aggressively.