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Price strength persists
The commodities surge has continued, with even rice hitting a record $1,000 a tonne, causing mayhem in South East Asian markets. Falling US crude oil and petrol stocks helped push oil above $115 a barrel at one stage and focused renewed investor attention on the sector.
On the metals front, copper hit a record £8,000 a tonne amid concerns about a strike among subcontractors at the Andina and Salvador divisions of Chile’s Codelco, the world’s largest copper producer. Rio Tinto came in for renewed attention in expectation of a hostile bid from Anglo-Australian world mining leader BHP Billiton.
Despite the buoyant oil market, Russia-focused Imperial Energy, which last year clashed with the country’s allegedly politically and financially motivated regulators, found it impossible to raise debt finance. Instead, the company had to launch a deeply discounted £307 million rights issue to take its projects forward.
Imperial has proven and probable reserves of 920 million barrels of oil equivalent. These are among the largest in the world for an independent company.
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