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45 comments on Fuel duty and the effect of oil prices on the UK economy

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Euan Mearns on December 7, 2006 - 4:47am Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
On a more serious note:

Notably, the recent decline in energy prices has not been matched by metals prices, suggesting that global demand growth is likely to remain strong. Gordon Brown


Most metals prices crashed in May along with equities - but not oil at that time.  Metals are just off their May lows now.


U - that energy metal - just keeps going up - I wonder why?

But I agree global demand has stayed strong.  Brown is forecasting 2.75% growth next year.

As for green fuel taxes - who is gong to be put off flying by an additional £5 on air passenger duty?

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Valuethinker on December 14, 2006 - 4:46pm Permalink | Subthread | Parent | Comments top
There are some special factors in the uranium case which do not arise from concerns about future oil shortages:

- current demand for uranium exceeds production.  World production of uranium ore only accounts for 60% of consumption, the rest comes from dismantled bombs and from existing nuclear fuel units.

This state of affairs is likely to continue for some years as

  • there have been no new uranium production facilities of size opened for some years

  • a third factor is the flooding of the Cigar Lake facility (Cameco) which was to be as much as 10% of world supply, when completed

There has also been a lot of hedge fund activity, going long in the uranium metal, for the reasons as above.

Demand from new civilian nuclear facilities is at least a decade away, in most cases (there are a number of units being built in China, I believe, and also Finland has one under construction).

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45 comments on Fuel duty and the effect of oil prices on the UK economy

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