【英文】世界银行报告：大宗商品市场展望（50页）

英文研究报告 2022年11月21日 07:24 管理员

The estimated impulse responses of aluminum and copper prices to economic activity suggest considerable downside risks to global aluminum and copper prices. There is a material risk of a global recession as a result of highly synchronous policy tightening around the world to rein in record high inflation (Guénette, Kose, and Sugawara 2022). Since industrial production tends to be more volatile than output, this could be accompanied by an even steeper slowdown in industrial production which would also be reflected in lower aluminum and copper prices. The results point to metal price swings as an important transmission channel for the global business cycle to countries that rely heavily on copper or aluminum sectors for exports, fiscal revenues, and economic activity. More swings in aluminum and copper prices can be expected as the energy transition away from fossil fuels towards renewable fuels and battery-powered transport gathers momentum. Renewable electricity generation is considerably more metal intensive than traditional energy generation.

Solar or wind-powered electricity generation, for example, uses two to three times the amount of copper per kWh than gas-powered electricity generation; the production of a battery-powered car uses more than three times the amount of copper per car than an internal combustion engine car (IEA 2022). The war in Ukraine is likely to accelerate the energy transition as countries seek to reduce reliance on fossil fuels such as oil, coal, and natural gas, where Russia accounts for 11-25 percent of global exports (Guénette, Kenworthy, and Wheeler 2022).Since then, however, prices for both commodities have plunged. This has reflected an exceptionally steep global growth slowdown as well as the unwinding of supply disruptions. In addition, aluminum smelting, which is extremely energy intensive, has fallen sharply amid soaring energy prices. As a result, negative consumption demand shocks contributed even more to the aluminum price decline than economic activity shocks (figure 5B). Similarly, the real estate sector slowdown in China that began to intensify in April constituted a negative consumption shock for copper prices. In addition, for copper, which is often considered a bellwether for global economic developments, growing concerns about the possibility of a global recession in 2023—an example of an inventory shock—have weighed on prices.