KPMG: “Ten sustainability megaforces”

In February this year, KPMG published a report identifying ten “sustainability megaforces that will affect every business over the next two decades.” They have identified ten good drivers of change. They just seem to have missed a trick when it comes to showing how these issues will have serious consequences for business leaders. Even inclusion of the …

Japan’s first iron ore swap agreed

Mitsui, the Tokyo-based trading house, announced it has signed the country’s first ore swap, with Credit Suisse. The swap allows Mitsui, which acts as a middleman between iron ore miners such as Vale of Brazil, Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton and the Japanese steelmakers, “to hedge the price of the commodity, avoiding the volatility of …

Footnote to the iron ore story

As a ‘footnote’ to our earlier post (though we are sure it will not be the final word), on April 2 the FT paper carried a story saying that prices of oil (and other commodities) “surged on Thursday, with oil hitting a fresh 18-month high of $85 a barrel, and copper and iron ore posting multi-month …

Iron ore derivatives set to “take off”

An interesting example of how our financial system works is playing out before our eyes. And it reveals a likely future for peak oil. Yesterday buyers and sellers of a basic physical commodity, iron ore, announced that they had agreed a new approach for setting prices. The changes had two main parts. First, prices will …