Energy
Chart: How Every Commodity Performed in 2016
2016 Commodity Performance
It was an up and down year for commodities, but things ultimately finished in the black.
The S&P Goldman Sachs Commodity Index (GSCI) climbed 10.1% on the year – it was just enough to edge out the S&P 500, which ended 2016 with a 9.5% return.
Winners in 2016
The biggest winners on the year were base metals and the oil and gas sector.
Here’s how base metals did:
Base Metal | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | 2016 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Iron Ore | 37.0% | -6.2% | 6.3% | 31.1% | 81.0% |
Zinc | 20.0% | 13.1% | -3.2% | 26.1% | 65.7% |
Nickel | -3.1% | 13.9% | 11.9% | -5.0% | 17.3% |
Aluminum | 3.8% | 7.2% | 1.4% | 4.0% | 17.3% |
Copper | 0.1% | 3.9% | -0.5% | 13.1% | 17.1% |
Iron ore and zinc were the best performing commodities on the face of the planet in 2016. Iron finished up 81%, its first calendar gain in four years. Meanwhile, zinc shot up 65.7% on the year as major zinc mines shut down, and supply stockpiles dwindled.
Oil and gas also posted a major comeback in 2016:
Energy | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | 2016 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Natural gas | -17.0% | 53.3% | -2.7% | 28.0% | 58.5% |
Oil (Brent) | 0.6% | 35.1% | -1.2% | 13.6% | 52.4% |
Oil (WTI) | -3.2% | 37.3% | -2.1% | 11.4% | 44.9% |
It was a volatile year overall, but it appears that the worst of the downturn in energy prices is over.
Losers in 2016
Not all energy-related commodities could be so lucky.
Uranium continued its epic nosedive, losing -41.6% on the year. U3O8 now trades for $20.25/lb, a tiny fraction of its previous highs of over $100/lb in 2007.
Energy Losers | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | 2016 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Uranium | -16.0% | -7.4% | -12.0% | -14.7% | -41.6% |
Coal | 0.5% | -9.3% | 1.3% | 0.0% | -7.7% |
Coal has also performed abysmally, at least in North America where CAPP prices finished down on the year -7.7%. We previously showed the decline of coal in three charts, and it seems that coal will likely continue to be an unpopular choice for utility companies in the U.S. and Canada.
That said, it is worth mentioning that Australian coal prices went bonkers earlier this year due to a Chinese administrative oversight.
Energy
How Much Does the U.S. Depend on Russian Uranium?
Currently, Russia is the largest foreign supplier of nuclear power fuel to the U.S.
How Much Does the U.S. Depend on Russian Uranium?
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The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed a ban on imports of Russian uranium. The bill must pass the Senate before becoming law.
In this graphic, we visualize how much the U.S. relies on Russian uranium, based on data from the United States Energy Information Administration (EIA).
U.S. Suppliers of Enriched Uranium
After Russia invaded Ukraine, the U.S. imposed sanctions on Russian-produced oil and gas—yet Russian-enriched uranium is still being imported.
Currently, Russia is the largest foreign supplier of nuclear power fuel to the United States. In 2022, Russia supplied almost a quarter of the enriched uranium used to fuel America’s fleet of more than 90 commercial reactors.
Country of enrichment service | SWU | % |
---|---|---|
🇺🇸 United States | 3,876 | 27.34% |
🇷🇺 Russia | 3,409 | 24.04% |
🇩🇪 Germany | 1,763 | 12.40% |
🇬🇧 United Kingdom | 1,593 | 11.23% |
🇳🇱 Netherlands | 1,303 | 9.20% |
Other | 2,232 | 15.79% |
Total | 14,176 | 100% |
SWU stands for “Separative Work Unit” in the uranium industry. It is a measure of the amount of work required to separate isotopes of uranium during the enrichment process. Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration
Most of the remaining uranium is imported from European countries, while another portion is produced by a British-Dutch-German consortium operating in the United States called Urenco.
Similarly, nearly a dozen countries around the world depend on Russia for more than half of their enriched uranium—and many of them are NATO-allied members and allies of Ukraine.
In 2023 alone, the U.S. nuclear industry paid over $800 million to Russia’s state-owned nuclear energy corporation, Rosatom, and its fuel subsidiaries.
It is important to note that 19% of electricity in the U.S. is powered by nuclear plants.
The dependency on Russian fuels dates back to the 1990s when the United States turned away from its own enrichment capabilities in favor of using down-blended stocks of Soviet-era weapons-grade uranium.
As part of the new uranium-ban bill, the Biden administration plans to allocate $2.2 billion for the expansion of uranium enrichment facilities in the United States.
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