by Naveen Thukral and Gavin Maguire
SINGAPORE (Reuters) – Commodity prices continued to climb on Thursday a week after Russian forces invaded Ukraine, with aluminum, coal and palm oil prices hitting historic highs as crude oil and wheat prices are at their highest levels for several years.
Sanctions imposed by Western powers on Russia – a leading producer in the oil, gas, industrial metals and grain markets – have disrupted supply chains of strategic resources.
Aluminum prices on the London Stock Exchange have soared 30% since the start of the year while US wheat futures have jumped 25% this week alone as markets try to assess the repercussions of a potential disruption of Russian supplies if the international community increases its sanctions against the Kremlin.
Several close sources said on Wednesday that the United States was preparing a new set of sanctions targeting more Russian oligarchs and their various businesses and assets.
The barrel of Brent rose on Thursday to 119.84 dollars for the first time since May 2012. Russia is the third largest oil producer in the world.
“Russia’s invasion of Ukraine spells further upheaval for global energy markets, already reeling from extreme price volatility over the past two years,” said industry analyst Sam Reynolds. at the Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA).
Australian bank ANZ now expects a barrel at $125.
On the industrial metals side, aluminum on the London Metal Exchange rose 2.3% to reach an unprecedented 3,650 dollars per tonne, and the price of nickel jumped 4% to 26,935 dollars per tonne. .
As for grains, Russia and Ukraine together are expected to account for 28.5% of global wheat exports in 2021, according to the US Department of Agriculture.
World wheat prices are not immune to the general increase as investors try to take into account the sharp drop in supply from these two countries.
Chicago wheat futures have risen nearly 40% in the past month and hit a 14-year high of $11.34 a bushel.
Russia and Ukraine also account for 19% of corn exports and 80% of sunflower oil exports, competing with soybean oil and palm oil.
Palm oil prices from Malaysia also hit record highs while US soybean oil hit a new 14-year high.
On the Newcastle futures market in Australia, coal has also recorded a meteoric rise since the sanctions against Russia, the world’s third largest exporter. The price hit a record high of $440 per tonne this week, up 100% from the previous month.
(Report Naveen Thukral; French version Laetitia Volga, edited by Blandine Hénault)