US diesel ban; crude scarcity; China’s copper squeeze

The prospect of a US ban on diesel exports threatens to make a bad situation worse, especially as signs of physical scarcity in the crude oil market have emerged. Our sense is that while the White House will go through with restrictions in some form, the ban could either be partial and/or short-lived. Meanwhile, the rise in the Shanghai copper premium to its highest level since 2022 demonstrates how the spectre of US copper tariffs is contributing to tight copper markets in the rest of the world. This provides an upside risk to our end-year forecast of $14,000 per tonne while tariff uncertainty lingers.