STA Blog

Thank goodness they added the ‘and beyond’ to the presentation as it took place on the 8th October 2024. Each speaker was strictly allocated 10 or so minutes to present a broad outline of their outlook for their chosen commodities – something they did exceptionally well.

First up was Clive Lambert FSTA, a face many STA members might recognise. For some years now Clive has focused on energy markets so he kicked off with a chart of Brent Crude prices, followed by Dutch TTF gas on a linear and then a logarithmic scale. Appropriately he then looked at EU carbon emissions prices, followed by a skip through gold, silver, wheat, sugar and aluminium. Of perhaps more interest was something that came up in the audience questions later on. Clive noted that despite all the current hype about Artificial Intelligence and algorithmic trading, his analysis methods have remained unchanged for decades.

Supporting the fundamental outlook for commodities was economist Christof Ruehl who was Group Chief Economist at BP for many years and is now legal adviser at Cyrstol Energy and adjunct Senior Research Scholar at theCentre on Energy Policy at Columbia University. He describes his speciality as energy security and energy transition, pointing out that the world moved from wood as its main source of energy to coal in 1862, and then from coal to oil in 1962. He reminds that wars threaten energy security and that he feels current energy transition is failing. More importantly, his thoughts are refreshingly broad and new and not limited to the usual macroeconomic mish-mash we’re fed.

Clive Lambert; Christof Ruehl; Keval Dhokia and Jeff Boccaccio

Finally, STA Board member Keval Dhokia who currently works for Coca-Cola Euro pacific Partners. Teased earlier by Clive about his interest in aluminium, his presentation was of a longer outlook and looking back on long term price history. A chart of the Bloomberg Commodity Index since 2000 suggests that the latest downswing probably bottomed in 2020, with a combination of security of supply and vertical integration. More interesting was his chart of something called Oil Global Intensity. Since 1984 this moves in a pronounced downward sine curve, meaning that the amount of oil need to produce X amount of output has decreased dramatically through to 2021.

Throughout the presentation it was clear to see the solid depth of knowledge these men had, and the camaraderie between them was super. A very enjoyable meeting!