Your author, on reading reports of the upbeat forecasts being bandied about by the metals consulting group CRU this week at Expomin Chile, decided to go and check on the recent track record of CRU and their forecasts. A typical example is the chart below, from the CRU presentation “Copper Market Outlook” prepared for the Scotiabank Commodities Outlook Conference on 13th January 2015 by Matthew Wonnacott, Senior Consultant – Copper Markets and Demand (and with that little lot you too can Google and find the PDF on the interwebnetpipes):
CRU expected 2015 copper at around U$6,300 per tonne in 2015, with the low end of the price band at around U$5,500/tonne. As for 2016, things get better and we go kinda U$6,500/tonne. Sadly, reality didn’t match CRU’s expectations. In fact the scale of that chart above doesn’t even include the sub-U$4,500/tonne minimum we hit. As for 2016, U$6,500/tonne is the same as U$2.94/lb….how’s that looking?
Just sayin’.