President Barack Obama’s decision yesterday to reject a permit for TransCanada Corp.’s Keystone XL oil pipeline may prompt Canada to turn to China for oil exports.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper, in a telephone call yesterday, told Obama “Canada will continue to work to diversify its energy exports,” according to details provided by Harper’s office. Canadian Natural Resource Minister Joe Oliver said relying less on the U.S. would help strengthen the country’s “financial security.”
The “decision by the Obama administration underlines the importance of diversifying and expanding our markets, including the growing Asian market,” Oliver told reporters in Ottawa.
Currently, 99 percent of Canada’s crude exports go to the U.S., a figure that Harper wants to reduce in his bid to make Canada a “superpower” in global energy markets.
Canada accounts for more than 90 percent of all proven reserves outside the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, according to data compiled in the BP Statistical Review of World Energy. Most of Canada’s crude is produced from oil-sands deposits in the landlocked province of Alberta, where output is expected to double over the next eight years, according to the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers.
“I am sure that if the oil sands production is not used in the United States, they will be used in other countries,” Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, said in an interview before a speech at Imperial College in London today.
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Aluminum May Extend Advance to $2,295 After Breakout: Technical Analysis
Aluminum, the second best-performing metal on the London Metal Exchange this year, may extend a rally to $2,295 per ton in the next few weeks, according to technical analysis by Commerzbank AG.
“Aluminum has maintained its break higher and continues to correct higher,” Karen Jones, a Commerzbank technical analyst in London, wrote in a Jan. 18 report. The erosion of the December high of $2,168 suggests an extension of the rally, she said in a telephone interview today.
Aluminum for delivery in three months on the LME rose as much as 1.3 percent to $2,233 a ton, the highest price since Oct. 31, and traded at $2,228 a ton by 6:47 p.m. Seoul time.
“We believe that the market has some unfinished business on the topside near term and we would allow for an extension of the rally to the $2,278/95 resistance,” Jones wrote. Resistance refers to levels where sell orders may be clustered.
Technical analysts watch for patterns on daily charts, such as moving averages and resistance levels, for clues to price direction.
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Copper Climbs to 17-Week High as China May Relax Credit Curbs
Copper rose to a 17-week high in New York on speculation China may ease credit controls as growth slows, potentially bolstering demand prospects in the world’s largest user of the metal.
China’s banking regulator is weighing a plan to relax capital requirements for lenders, delaying implementing the most stringent capital-adequacy ratios, four people with knowledge of the matter said. Copper imports into China reached a record high and fourth-quarter economic growth in the country topped economists’ estimates, figures showed this month.
Looser capital rules “would be key in raising economic expectations for China, which in turn will drive base-metal prices higher on the expected incremental demand,” RBC Capital Markets Ltd. said in a report today.
Copper for March delivery gained 1.3 percent to settle at $3.8005 a pound at 1:12 p.m. on the Comex in New York. Prices reached $3.8215, the highest level since Sept. 20.
