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Poland bets on Russian oil again [82]
Its clear we are talking about oil. And at a price which is towards historical lows the market is in contango and taking the view that future prices will be higher, underlined by futures contracts over the next 2 years. Usually the oil market is in contango given storage costs, but when market is excessively high, future price exhibit backwardation, where the futures prices is below the spot price. Since we are towards the bottom of the historical range, the market is pricing in a higher future price and any deals done on oil delivery is going to be based on market estimates. Anything else is speculation and doesnt fall under the prudent approach to budgeting that most governments stick to.
Johnny Reb, a commoditys price tends to hold up or go up if its in demand ie if people are buying the commodity. Food is something the world as a whole cannot do without and so on the whole food prices have stayed firmed. Youve got stuff like cocoa which has gone up loads in the last year whole pork has gone down a bit, but taken as a whole, firm. Now look at stuff like copper aluminium iron, all of that is down roughly 50% in the last year. Chinas growth was behind the boom in commodity prices over the past decade. They claim growth is slowing from 8% a couple of years ago to around 6% this year, partly as they move from a manufacturing to service based economy. So they'll be needing less of the above mentioned stuff. The slack is supposed to be taken up by the growth in other economies in the world and that what people are waiting for.
As for heating costs etc, you are paying a lot of taxes within the price, for example petrol in poland (i filled up today at 4.05zl for 98octane) is about 3zl in taxes and other fixed charges.