Watch: Market Movers Americas, March 18-22: Energy industry gathers for CERAWeek, oil futures remain high

Market Movers Americas, March 18-22: Energy industry gathers for CERAWeek, oil futures remain high

This week, CERAWeek by S&P Global takes place in Houston, gathering top executives and officials from around the world across the energy and political spheres. Commodity markets will be on the lookout for announcements and developments around supply chains, climate and sustainability, energy policy, and more.

In oil, crude futures are holding near four-month highs. Geopolitical risks in Ukraine and the Middle East are intensifying concerns of a tightening supply and demand outlook for 2024. Oil markets will also be closely watching the outcome of this week’s US Federal Reserve meeting. The Fed is widely expected to hold interest rates steady, but since there have been multiple hotter-than -expected US inflation readings, the meeting will be telling as to whether the Fed will be able to implement its first rate cut by June as expected.

In metals, upcoming planned outages at various domestic US steelmakers are expected to have a muted effect on prices amid a recent round of mill-enforced price hikes. More than 371,000 short tons of rated capacity should be taken out of the market from March to June, but participants are concerned this will have little impact on slipping flat-steel prices due to stable-to-lower demand levels.

Finally, the PJM Interconnection, the largest US power market serving 13 states and Washington, is working with states and stakeholders to set up a forward clean energy attribute market for unbundled renewable energy credits. The group will meet Thursday to discuss the next steps in designing this new market.

I’m Annette Hugh. Thanks for kicking off your Monday with S&P Global Commodity Insights.