Notes from the FT Global Commodities Summit with Paul Chapman

[Music] Welcome to the HC Comortis Podcast, a podcast dedicated to the Comortis sector and the people within it. I'm your host Paul Chapman. This podcast is produced by HC Group, a global search firm dedicated to the Comortis sector. Thanks for joining. This is my attempt to reflections again on the Financial Times's Global Comortis Summit, which was in Lausanne on Monday the 20th to Wednesday, the 22nd of April. This is today on Wednesday afternoon, so these are relatively fresh reflections. This year, HC Group are proud to be a silver sponsor of the event and also participated in a piece of work with the FT Longitude on AI and the impact on commodity trading. That piece of work is available to download and I'll put links in the show notes. We surveyed over 130 C-suite execs in the commodity trading space from hedge funds through to trading houses, through to asset-back multi-nationals to understand how they were using AI, how much they were using AI, what their expectations are of its impact on P&L and its people and the talented needs. And it shows some really interesting both the amount of embrace of AI out there, but also how those three categories of firms are using it differently and have different goals as well as different challenges. So I'll put links again in the show notes. It was certainly a topic of discussion at the summit and I hope you enjoyed reading it and I certainly look forward to your thoughts. As always, the FT Global Commodities summit is for me one of the best, if not the best, commodity trading summit. You're cloistered in Nalzan in the lovely Bow River Hotel. It is the leadership of every consequential organisation or most of them. Certainly the trading houses and many hedge funds this year are present and even if you don't attend every panel, I couldn't attend everyone. You get a real sense of the vibe and what's on top of mind for everyone in the commodity sector and it's fascinating how that changes year to year which is a demonstration of just how vibrant but also volatile this sector is. I personally want to thank everyone who came up and gave us some props for the podcast. There's lots of listeners there and really do appreciate the positive comments. And obviously wasn't alone as with my colleagues and lots of good meetings we had and lots of follow up to be done. I'm currently sat in the hotel room in Geneva waiting for our Bloomberg event. This evening on Metals and trying to price how to thread the needle between pricing the narrative and pricing the physical and I think one of the things that the conference showed is that those two things are becoming intimately intertwined. So my goal here is just to give you a sense of the key themes that were coming out of the conference then they're impacts of those and talk a little bit about commodities themselves and some of the comments on markets and how they're functioning in such a time of volatility. A few notes on the various CEOs of the training houses that speak in their keynote presentations which is always interesting as try as the FT might to get numbers out of them. They don't give them up quite naturally and then just talk wrap up with a few more thoughts. Let's turn to key themes. Obviously the key theme is Iran and the ongoing conflict there and it was notable that people were reacting to tweets in real time and how many leaders said that they now have for pity them they have present Trump's truth social up on the walls in the offices as that's a major mover of markets and in some ways it would have been easier the conference had happened in two weeks time or three weeks time. We're still in this obviously as a time of recording the cease fire has just been extended you know the markets are really poised on this idea that it could be over soon and things whilst damaged might go back to normal at some point versus a significant escalation and I would say in general the room was quite pessimistic both about even if the conflict were to end today the you know the damage done the damage wrought the trust impacted and actually we sort of haven't seen anything yet in terms of prices higher for longer and more volatile and will come on to some of the other consequential impacts. But generally as well people expecting an escalation and not an end to this anytime soon which I'll talk about a little bit in the prices. The essential equation of every every panel was the impact of this crisis is a function of time a length of duration which of course is unknown as well as the damage done which was fascinating some comments there around that's also unknown whilst we can know what the damage to infrastructure on top of the land is we can't yet tell how damaged the reserves are underground underground pipelines are the bits of infrastructure you know particularly with respect to some of the oil fields but also also with respect to LNG and some of that's been quite closely held secret we also don't know the damage in Iran either so again it comes back to this theme that we're sort of in some sense stuck in the middle of the fray at the moment the immediate volatility in the physical markets is depicting that and some of those prices aren't even being posted but then we have the a financial market the S&P 500 you know that at a real-time record because that's still pricing in a soon to be over-war and one in which the world goes back to normal which if you talk to the physical commodity trading world they would say it won't. Allied to all of that is you know it is very apparent that the old trilema of cost, security of supply and sustainability is now pretty much out the window and really it is all about security of supply so of Renety of supply a security premium that we will all be paying we are paying today and we will be paying in the future Robert Friedland the CEO of Ivan Hormanns who gave a fantastic talk and I hope to get him on the podcast noted that actually in the developing world cost might play a factor you can choose to turn off the power and have rolling black outs and shutdown factories but in the developed world you can't and really the only thing that matters is security of supply and we are going to see this be played out both in the short term but in the long term as well and one of the key functions of security of supply well there is the growing need to develop alternative routes of routes alternative sources of supply alternative routes of supply but of course ultimately building up inventories of every commodity around the world which eventually will be a cost passed on to consumers the just in time world as it was described is over commodity traders themselves are recognising that that world of you know how much what price and where and it will be there tomorrow is is very much over and you know we'll have impacts for all of us and for the economies and I think in some ways the S&P 500 being at all time high is a reflection of that understanding is not there yet not there yet and to that end of course then we start to call for government intervention and it was notable at this conference that the US government was on at least three panels department of state department of treasury and the export import bank which is a we I have never seen before at the FT Global Commodities podcast all talking about various policy goals and initiatives essentially with respect to ensuring the supply of yes hydrocarbons but also critical minerals in particular metals is kind of the epicenter of that story and also using the opportunity to somewhat berate a room full of Europeans on their lack of acceptance of US tech companies and alike and you know quite a stark change from just 10 years ago also using the opportunity to talk about how much the US government sees AI as an absolute changer and rate step change in economic growth and opportunity and not wanting to see Europe fall behind on that which can be it's a debate for another podcast and another time. John Javanovic of the of the Exxon Bank was certainly impressive Exxmachuria executive so with deeply understanding of commodities and talking about how the US are using that bank which has deployed more capital this year than it has and it's in any year in its entire 90 year history to support mineral production export transportation around the world so you know the US is back it may not be back in the form of USA but it is certainly back in the form of economic heft competing with China over Africa and all this gives some pause about a room full of capitalists who made a a lot of money through free market and capturing efficiencies and so forth, solving problems in time, form and spaces, Richard Holtum points his at points out being the market shock absorber. One wonders about where this might end up, about inviting governments to solve problems, the number of calls that miners made about, you cannot build a new mine using an NPV model, it just comes out at zero and you won't build it and there's the need for government support. And in many ways that's completely understandable when you're competing against China where the economics don't apply, it is all government support. How do you solve that equation without losing what made a free market successful, which has been generally speaking a laissez-faire approach and less government intervention? That also cascades through today if there is indeed the Treasury trading, US oil futures, etc. There is a sub-point at which the markets as design don't function and that makes everything more expensive, more difficult to hedge and all the rest of it. So there was a certain amount of be careful what you wish for. And finally, there was a talk of almost reminiscent of the 18th century or the 16th century in the episode we did on Spice, a lot of talk about choke points, obviously the straights of or the straight of hallmews, but also the black sea, the straights of Morocco, whatever it might be, where actually suddenly where we were used to international and free flow of commodities through international waters, what happens if a precedent is set of tolls, illegal tolls according to maritime law on the straight of hallmews? What does that suddenly have cascading impacts around the market? Mary Johnson, head of shipping at Maccuria, I thought was excellent on this point where he spoke about, we're talking about choke points and seeing how vital they are in this more mechanistic type trade, but what precedent does it set and where might we end up if suddenly Turkey's Turkey for example tolls at the black sea at the boss for us and so forth. Again, ultimately less efficient markets, more expensive, more inflationary and cost consumers paying more. Note that this necessarily is a bad news for commodity traders themselves who are thriving in a world where the world needs them to solve these physical problems and a bit more than in a minute, but needsless to say security of supply, a security premium ultimately paid by us was absolutely the watch word of this conference. More subtle points would be, other themes would be that China, the view that China counterintuitively in some ways is coming out of this current conflict very well. In the very short term, even the medium term, it has been preparing for such an event. It has ample stocks across the various key minerals. It of course controls the rare earths that the West needs. It has alternative supplies of energy, it has diversified and they're more long term looking more like a stable partner that is strategically thinking in the long term. And of course in this battle for the future economy, one that surely is inevitably highly electrified where it's all possible and less hydrocarbon based, China presumably is winning on that front as well as the West is reminded that there are any option for security, well Europeans are reminded that a good option for security of supply is of course domestic energy production through renewables, even nuclear, which is another winner out of this conflict in the long term. You know, lean on technology that China is producing. And there's even a scenario discussed kind of in the halls that if all of this is very inflationary, the price that the conflict continues again in that equation, the time to the power of damage, if the conflict continues for a long time, diesel and jet are going to be very hard to come by. You might even see a scenario where Europe suddenly becomes more amenable to very cheap Chinese electric cars as a solver for that inflation and unhappy populace. So counterintuitively China certainly a winner. And then of course a big loser is ultimately carbon emissions as switching from gas to coal. We'll come onto that as a key event right now, essentially around the world. If you are there's demand destruction for gas but coal is coming back online, mothball plants in Asia are being fired up and coal is moving to the detriment of the planet but to the great boon for coal miners and traders. And finally obviously another loser is likely to be us, you, unless you're a commodity trader and our wallets as we move to this higher cost-structured world which has so much more inventory built in, so much more alternative routes and again with that security of supply in it. And we're moving to a new world I hadn't heard but a plural lateral world in terms of trade. So lots of groups trading together and countries teaming up but not a global system. And it was asked what does that all mean for the world trade organisation? Could we ever move back to an integrated world and various panels seem pretty pessimistic on that. The view was that the problem is trust and once that trust is broken it's very hard to build back and this world will remain integrated but it's going to be much more on security. And if markets are sufficiently damaged which I'll say again I'll come onto, you might even see the return of long-term agreements and OTC and so forth which is a real retrograde move against the opening of commodity markets over the last 30 years as I would argue such prosperity to the world. And on the great shipping panel I attended that was certainly alluded to as contracts break down with respect to what's going on in the state of hall moves and drying up liquidity in things like FFA's and what that means for shippers, operators, charters to be able to actually manage the risks of what is already a volatile market and we're certainly seeing that throughout our shipping practice and demand picking up there. So what for on the markets and the commodities side? Well again it's kind of a little bit of a depending on time and damage answered to all of these questions. There's a few key elements I wanted to draw out. On the oil panel always great was Sardar Rahim, Hadim Kraft and another form of guess of the podcast talking about where oil is headed and again talking about the very short term extraordinarily high prices in both crude and products but the forward curve still effectively pricing in a more normal world probably with some 30 to 50 percent increase over this sort of $60 oil glut will we had just a few months ago spreading out over the long term they declined this time to really put a pin in where oil might be but certainly irrespective of the crisis was over today and slowly wound up they still seen that premium somewhere but between 30 and 50 percent and actually I'll talk about a minute but Russell Hardy had some pretty good insight into that as well the CEO of VTOL. Next up was LNG and natural gas. This was particularly fascinating we had Pavlo Escobar of VTOL, Julien Bordeaux of Macuria among others. Amy Papa of 6'1 commodities among others this is where I actually I think LNG and gas is probably in some ways the biggest story than oil in the sense that it directly leads to a food crisis so we know that sort of 20 percent of Qatar is out this is what Pavlo was sharing maybe three to five months for production to come back longer for the for the actual some of the trains but that's an optimistic outlook but essentially saying that in the short term you've had a significant hit to LNG production that has caused of that 20 percent of that sort of out it mainly goes to Asia essentially you've seen to solve that problem we've seen huge demand destruction and half of that is essentially gone to coal and half of that I'm talking broad numbers I'm probably getting it slightly wrong is because people are not able to make fertilizer. The energy and resources sector is experiencing unprecedented change to help navigate this change and capture its opportunities HC group launched Enco Insights a global advisory network dedicated to the sector providing senior advisors and subject matter experts to investment and infrastructure funds law firms and corporates. Enco Insights leverages HC groups 20 years of connections in energy and commodities to to give clients the expertise they need when the stakes are high. high and insight matters. Learn more at Enco Insights.com. Okay, you can solve for power through coal and other means and just general demand destruction. The problem is going to be fertiliser as Pablo pointed out, which is we've just had the planting season in the US at the moment producers are essentially preferring or choosing not to make fertiliser because the prices are too high or the gas is just simply not available. We were on sort of borrowed time as you put it in that sense and fertiliser is a must-have commodity for the world and otherwise we get a food crisis. So if that LNG can't come back online from guitar, can't start to flow in the next three to five months, you're going to start hitting up against the southern hemisphere's growing season and then possibly even the northern hemisphere's growing season in a year's time and that could be catastrophic. So that was an interesting but slightly scary insight. Amy, who we look forward to having on the podcast, talked about what's going on in Asia generally and again probably in not something that I see my side of the pond but talked about just Pakistan and India essentially dealing with that, or huge increase in prices in natural gas through rolling blackouts essentially just demand destruction, rationing, trying to bring on some reserve capacity, trying to get coal plants out of mothballs and she again noted, again this is my comment about China doing okay out of this, China's most insulated in Asia, only 20% of its gas comes from LNG and 6% of that comes from guitar and essentially they're sort of managing internally. Amy did say that actually and again this is a probably a bigger theme I should point to that we in some ways the 2022 Russia invasion of Ukraine allowed the commodity sector to build up some resiliency to events like this. One played out here where Asia, the governmental level has been more coordinated trying to avoid a scramble and so we haven't seen the big price spikes that you saw in that event. Another one I might as well mention it now is that the commodity financing world, the liquidity crisis of 2022 which dominated that year's FT is now actually sort of in the rear view mirror and lots of most of the trading houses haven't suffered at all. They've had solid bank lines, banks have stepped up and actually direct result of improving making the system more robust from 2022. Generally speaking and this was hammered home by Fred Bonneu of Cephe, you know there is the glut of LNG that was predicted even on this podcast at Christmas. It might still be there but now it's said of it being in the midterm is probably more in the long term it's certainly not in the short term and there's a question mark in reality over whether actually Qatar certainly, you know it might take a long time to get back to where it currently was but there's probably unlike to be further investment or these question marks over it so actually that glut now looks very much like a shortage and one that needs to be sorted quickly in order for a food crisis, a fertiliser crisis to be avoided. And again some talk of the gas curves being relatively sanguine in the longer term and actually that doesn't necessarily spur on the immediate nature of the crisis with new investment which is another longer term theme here but again good for coal, good for nukes, you know and a challenge for lots of people and pretty good for the US as well. Various panels of metals copper is king, you know the entire AI story is very much alive and well and indeed strengthening and the fact that copper underpins the need to provide electricity to those AI data centers that we're seeing that demand really start to grow again after a long period of stagnation in the west and also the need for copper within the data centers and the fact that copper, you know the great reserves of copper are shrinking and the costs are only going up to extract it, bulb, batar, cc of Rio Tinto, I look at it pointed out that whilst the DRC has these fantastic reserves of copper at 5% concentration in the earth and actually doesn't take much to concentrate it, other sources like Chile it's 0.5% and the costs are only going up as opening up new minds but again the real challenges are that these minds aren't linked to the current price of copper, they take a decade to get online and the economics are very challenging and Robert Friedland once again called for governments the US to recognise that and pointed out that they are they're finally mobilising on it but one wonders again where all this government intervention potentially picking winners might end up for the efficiency of markets. Lots of discussion around critical minerals and the blind spot that has been to the western government we've covered that a lot on this podcast but again relatively small these aren't they're thinly traded the volumes are small but their criticality is now very much recognised at the governmental level at the company level and the scramble is on and again it's all about choke points and alternative routes of supply and stock piles and so forth so we are certainly seeing the trading houses start to get very interested in these smaller scale critical minerals and so forth. I hope that was interesting I'll move to the some of the brief analysis of some of the CEO keynote interviews. First up was Gary Pederson of Gumball fitting near as he's the newest to the seat and in fact actually with the exception of Macquarie we've essentially seen a wholesale change and the CEOs over the last five years planned or not but Gary and American ex-Millenium ex-Coke is now in the in the CEO slot at Gumball. Lots of questions trying to find out how well they were doing in Q1 this was the same as asked of everyone and again relatively tight-lipped but pointed out that a couple of interesting elements there one was they've gone from essentially having Torbillon-Torng this is a major shareholder really only shareholder consequence so a concentration of decision making in one person to this new partnership structure and trying to empower through that ownership down to across the company and generate knowledge sharing and so forth that Gary points to as working and also actually and again this was mirror by others the US administration engaging with these trading houses talking to the CEOs trying to understand how the markets will work and what they could be doing to support and points to again something we've covered on this podcast that very much volatility is here to stay and that Gumball who have been historically quite rooted in Europe in terms of assets are going to also look to capture that volatility and opportunity in the US particularly in the upstream but also in things like power and refining the US so lots going on there it seems an exciting time for the company after some turmoil well publicised Russell Hardy a VTOL who's always lucid and engaging Russell was mainly talking about oil and whether this is the biggest shot the Heads meetings career and he said actually it was or at least a kin to Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and or the 1990s and pointed out that we've essentially lost 12 million barrels per day of hydrocarbons to the markets which is about a billion barrels lost and lots of journalists scurried off to file that pretty much immediately. Biggest impact of that is in Asia in terms of demand destruction but also seeing the Gulf Coast and Gulf states themselves. He said basically that means 6 million barrels per day getting less refined and a 4 million barrels per day of demand lost so it's some sort of 8 million barrels delta that's currently effectively being drawn out of inventories around the world and you know what happens when we hit roughly sort of June you know how are you going to solve for that 8% of daily demand and that's presumably going to be through price he asked that you know it was asked how you can sort of square the S&P 500 being at record levels and the events going on and he points out that what we're really seeing is sort of the market disruption and price activities are very much in the short term and the S&P 500 is essentially pricing that the the streets will open soon but again I think the theme of the conference was these experts in the room are more aware of the damage being wrought and or at least where the lack of knowledge is on the damage being wrought and things are very unlikely to go back to normal anytime soon. Bill Reed, see you next time. CEO of CCI. Again, I find him always an excellent speaker. Talked about really, obviously, their focus as a business is certainly more power and gas centric pointed out that really in Europe is kind of been a bit of a non-impact in general in Europe and the US at the moment. But believes that prices will eventually catch up and be going higher and that like the others were asked, is all this volatility good for them? And he pointed out that they've been very careful on their risk management between their asset side and their merchant side and really think about the world from a risk management standpoint. So yes, the volatility is great. Volatility is much easier when it comes from typical capital cycles and you can predict them in position for them, but much harder when they become events like these and often firms can get caught the wrong side of events. But generally over time can fix themselves and get back to solid performance not saying that's what's going on CCI with that was his point. You know, data set asked about data centers. I mean, he certainly subscribed to the power demand story, the copper demand story thinks some of the projections are too high on the actual level of scale, of investment and build, but that's probably necessary just to solve what could be an impending power crisis, certainly very inflationary if something isn't done about it. Seb Barrack, head of commodities for Citadel, I'll lump him in the CEO bucket given the scale of the operation. Very interesting to get a hedge fund view. Again, tight-lipped on performance as they would be. I'm sure that'll become public. Seb was asked about how they are keeping competitive. They don't have the physical assets that provide the proprietary insight and data that the trading houses were lying on and increasingly the asset backed multinationals. Seb said that actually, 10 years ago, they were way ahead of the market in terms of the capabilities that they built in-house. Other vendors are catching up. Some things that they had access to 10 years ago are available subscription. Seb spoke about the need for and that they are continuing to invest to make sure that they are ahead of the curve. And we see that from a people standpoint. Obviously, the volatility itself is a great opportunity for them. Again, the echoes of the challenges with regards to dealing with tweets as opposed to your standard supply and demand curves and so forth in counting barrels. But also Seb mentioned in reference the fact that the world has got a much better liquidity management and so forth in these volatile times as a direct consequence of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Richard Holtum, CEO of Trafigura. Now, I guess his second conference in the seat, I thought was very eloquent, very clear on Trafigura solving problems, being the shock absorber for the market, the fundamental raison d'etre of these trading houses and alluded to some of the complexity, which I'll note in a minute, talked about relentlessly trying to improve the company, lots of investment in AI, processes and so forth. I thought it was quite funny when asked about the settlement in their favour of the metal scandal, whether they were happy about the 700 million settlement, he pointed out that no one would be happy being defrauded by 700 million, but certainly felt vindicated that everything that Trafigura had said about it was true and then asked the FT to question where the funding had come from from the opposite side, which I'll let you Google, all very interesting stuff. Also asked about why and how Trafigura alongside VTOL were able to move the Venezuelan barrels oil shortly after Maduro's kidnap, I guess, and pointed out that they were the only two firms of scale, it was complex operation, they had to take the oil out of old Pedevacer ships, put into storage, they put on to new Trafigura ships and find homes for it quickly otherwise, Venezuela would be shut in and therefore the revenue would stop, so just interesting there and again this idea of closer relationships with governments and in some ways picking governments, but I thought Richard was excellent. All of these CEOs have become very, well they are very good at saying lots but giving little away, but you certainly do get some good insight out of listening to them. My apologies to Marco D'Anne, Koehead and Macquaria, not that he would necessarily care, but I miss his for some meetings that we had and then finally a CEO who says lots and gives lots away and doesn't mind what he says, but definitely made for entertainment and some thought provoking was Robert Friedland CEO of Ivan Hoe Mines who first of all challenges to wonder whether Iran would become a fourth superpower as a result of this attack if they are able to charge a million, 10 million, 100 million per ship going through the straight, sort of a echoing Jeff Curry's line of the molecules aren't printed, this is a real world supply chain that the milled it stops, everyone's in a hell of a lot of trouble. Pointed out how pleased he was with the current US administration that it was actually supporting, reindustrialization and the physical supply chains of the US and much to the dismay of many people in the audience said it was a shame what has happened in Europe and that they basically become Disneyland, France only makes food that kills you and and hamburgs and so forth and pointed out that even the Chinese are starting to make hamburgs and fashion and clothes that are better than anything Europe can make so a bit of a start warning and a bit of a shot across the bowels but in essence Robert who is a really engaging thinker and speaker from a was talking from a standpoint of Ivan Hoe Mines and obviously copper and just how crucial it is that we get our heads around the fact that their demand is going through the roof, we have those supply chains are controlled by China and that a solution needs to be found or the US too might become Disneyland and again this wrote down so my original comment on there's a clear line of sight that China could be a beneficiary of the events certainly and you know even Iran might have found out and just showed the world that it's all about choke points and whoever controls them controls all the money. So there you roughly have it and sorry if I've drawn on sorry about the audio quality again I'm in a hotel room not in my normal studio but you know just to reiterate I think it was a really consequential conference I urge people to attend next year it's certainly one that reflects you know the leadership thinking on what's going on and it's fascinating if I compare you know last year's conference we were talking a hydrocarbon glut would would oil even stay up at 60 and and AI and data revolution certainly the copper story there but in general oil was dead and produces might as well pack up and go home and and then G would be a short term solver and all the rest of it and just look where we are today and I would certainly you know I think the the role of the physical merchant is going to be just absolutely hammered home they have their work cut out for them as Richard Holtam said you know people are coming in the office midday on a Sunday and not leaving till late early in the morning the following Monday just to be able to move fix these ships and you know the tremendous works are done by people in the industry and again I think it was a start reminder to the asset back multinational's that they themselves who are all building out trading and marketing functions of some some scale absolutely is needed in a world where supply routes might shut down overnight via a tweet or markets becomes really dislocated and there are opportunities to solve problems for your clients and the hedge funds you know need to be relentlessly thinking about how they are keeping up and getting alternative edges in the market AI will play a big part of that I will put again I mentioned links of the show notes to our AI analysis and survey that we did it's definitely worth reading and if you've managed to hold on for this long and I wasn't too monotone thank you so much for your time I welcome any comments or questions and I'll see you or you'll hear me on the next episode of the HCA Commodities podcast next week and I'm off to a Bloomberg event and a live panel which sadly won't be broadcast this time but talking about metals and hopefully meeting some more of your listeners so thanks again for your time and I hope you found this worthwhile. Thank you for listening. To find out more about HC Group, our Global Offices and our expertise in search within the commodities sector, please visit www.hcgroup.global.