Commodities are trading like meme stocks

The US has officially banned Russian oil, gas and energy — which will no longer be accepted in US ports — sending oil prices even higher.

What’s the big deal? Russian oil only makes up 8% of oil imports — but the move still has negative consequences on the US via rising energy prices.

To reduce this impact, the US is searching for oil in unlikely places.

• US officials traveled to Venezuela — which the US sanctioned in 2019 — to discuss selling Venezuelan oil on the market.
• US oil execs are asking Wall Street for more investments — but investors are unwilling to fund new oil production.

So far, only the US and UK imposed a ban on Russia — and industry execs are sending warnings if more bans come:

• The Secretary-general of OPEC sees no way of replacing Russia’s 7M barrels of oil exports in a full international ban (via FT).
• Regina Mayor, KPMG’s US national sector leader, says “there are other sources of oil supply” — but it’s uncertain how quickly they can be online (via CNBC).

Nickel: Other commodities including nickel, copper and wheat have all jumped in recent weeks. The London Metal exchange suspended trading in nickel after prices shot up 250%.

But David Fickling of Bloomberg thinks nickel won’t have as big of an impact as high oil and wheat prices in the coming years — high nickel prices being unlikely to last past a few weeks.

In the near term, car makers are bracing for damage from higher nickel prices:

• 70% of nickel supply goes into stainless steel — a key material in EV production.
• Elon Musk sees nickel as the biggest concern for car batteries with car makers looking for alternatives.