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S&P lowers 2012 nickel price forecasts for the rest of 2012
Standard & Poor's Ratings Services has lowered its price assumptions for nickel and aluminum for the rest of 2012, noting that most metals prices are unlikely to fall much further under our base case scenario for 2012.
Mr S&P Credit Analysts Mr Andrey Nikolaev and Ms Marie Shmaruk in an advisory note wrote that "Our revised assumptions take into account the notable decline in spot prices for nickel and aluminum since our last update in January 2012, continued oversupply in the two markets, and the currently uncertain global economic outlook."
Since S&P's January 2012 update, aluminum and nickel have fallen 11% and 16%, the steepest drops among the base metals.
The analysts said that "The key reason for this underperformance, in our view, is the oversupply of the two metals. As for other metals, nickel and aluminum prices are also under pressure from the strengthening US dollar and market concerns about Chinese demand growth."
S&P advised that "We have left our 2012 price assumptions for the other metals and our 2013 and long term price assumptions on all metals unchanged because we continue to factor in our assumption of a soft landing in China, where we forecast GDP growth of about 8% annually in 2012-12. We also assume virtually flat GDP in Europe and about 2% growth in the US for 2012."
S&P also suggests that for most metals, cost profiles of major producers will likely not allow further substantial price deterioration without a noticeable decrease in production, which we do not anticipate in our base case.
Meanwhile, S&P advised it is leaving its long term price assumptions for industrial metals unchanged as we currently do not anticipate substantial changes in the long term supply demand balance.
S&P's metals price assumptions for the rest of this year include 90 cent per pound aluminum; USD 3.25 per pound for copper; USD 7.50 per pound nickel; 80 cents per pound zinc and USD 1,300 per pound gold.
Source - Mine Web