Recession Fears Dominate

Copper fell to its lowest price in 19 months, with metals extending losses as global recession fears continue to damp the demand outlook for commodities.

Sentiment remains sour for industrial materials used in everything from construction to new energy vehicles. Copper, widely considered an economic bellwether, is trading well below $8,000 a ton after metals posted their worst quarterly slump since the 2008 financial crisis.

“Sentiment in US industry is becoming more gloomy, in other words; we interpret this as a sign that the US economy is losing momentum,” Commerzbank AG analyst Carsten Fritsch said in a report. “Concerns about a global recession continue to predominate on the metals markets.”

The chances of a US recession are now 38%, according to the latest forecasts from Bloomberg Economics.

https://www.bloomberg.com/

Deliveries of over 305k Q4 vehicles, 936K for 2021

Tesla (TSLA) announced that it achieved both record production and deliveries during the last quarter of 2021. The automaker produced “more than 305,000 electric vehicles and delivered of over 308,000 electric vehicles during Q4 2021.

This is a massive quarter-over-quarter increase considering Tesla produced 237,000 vehicles during the third quarter. Most of the increase came from Model 3 and Model Y production, which Tesla still doesn’t differentiate in its report:

Deliveries came in way above the Wal Street consensus of about 265,000 deliveries in Q4. But more importantly, these results give Tesla an annualized production rate of over 1.2 million vehicles, which is unprecedented for producing electric vehicles.

https://electrek.co/

Electric vehicles, solar, and wind power are all miner-intensive

Renewable energy is considered by some to be one of the most effective tools to reduce global carbon emissions and fight climate change. However, building technologies like solar and wind power plants or electric vehicles (EVs) can be mineral-intensive.

Copper is considered an essential metal for renewables.The metal is highly conductive, can easily be shaped into pipes, wires, or sheets, and can remove heat far more rapidly than other metals. In fact, copper itself is a sustainable material. The metal is 100% recyclable and can be used repeatedly without any loss of performance.

Global copper demand in both the clean power and the clean transport sectors is expected to double in the next decades.

https://oilprice.com/