The head of the commodities division at Goldman Sachs has repeatedly spoken about the bottlenecks in the commodities market in recent months. In a Bloomberg interview, Jeff Currie spoke again about the extraordinary situation on the market.

Jeff Currie has been in the commodity market for a long time. For 30 years, as he revealed in a new interview with Bloomberg. Nevertheless, according to the Goldman Sachs analyst, he has not yet experienced a situation like the one currently prevailing on the commodity markets.

In the conversation, Currie drew parallels to the phase of the financial crisis, when commodities first reached enormous record highs. Brent crude briefly cost nearly $150 at the time.

Today, according to the analyst, the situation is completely different. There is a “molecular crisis”, with which Currie wants to underline that there are not only isolated bottlenecks. Rather, there is a lack of everything, whether “oil, gas, copper or aluminum”.

The reasons for the situation are clear, according to Currie. On the one hand, demand is recovering much more strongly than expected. In addition, however, there has also been too little investment in many areas in recent years.

With regard to the scarcity on the oil market, US producers are also not uninvolved. Although these only have manageable reserve capacities, production at around 11.5 million barrels/day is still well below the high of 13.0 million barrels. Although the number of running conveyor systems has increased significantly in recent months, this has had little effect on the actual output.

Recently, however, the CEO of the oil producer ConocoPhillips Ryan Lance warned against excessive growth in production in the USA. This year and 2023, production could increase at a rate similar to that of the past decade. ExxonMobil and Chevron previously announced plans to increase production by more than 900,000 barrels/day in the important Permian Basin.

The high price level for crude oil significantly increases the profitability of known deposits and encourages producers to increase output. At the same time, however, there is a risk that OPEC will take new measures to contain competition, which could push oil prices up again.