QUERY Long term commodity dynamics (SD6478)

[SDMAIL Marcus Pereira]

Posted by  Marcus Pereira <pereira_marcus at yahoo.com>

Hi All,

I wonder if any of you have developed a system
dynamics model to analyze the behavior of commodities,
such as copper, steel and oil, over the long term.

I feel that this is a very interesting debate as given
the recent unprecedented exponential price increases
(specially Nickel and Copper), there is basically no
possibility to generate accurate forecasts for long
term (10-20 year) demand or prices using traditional
econometric tools.

The last approach I am aware, a book from Gordon and
Skinner ("Toward a new Iron Age? Quantitative Modeling
of Resource Exhaustion", 1988), did not provide
consistent basis for projections.

Probably, an approach that includes and understanding
of the role of key players (demand), such as China and
USA, and the mining industry capacity (supply), is
necessary.

Please share your thoughts. If you have already worked
with a similar task, I'll be glad to hear from you.

Best regards,
Marcus Pereira
Posted by  Marcus Pereira <pereira_marcus at yahoo.com>
posting date  Tue, 12 Jun 2007 14:38:33 -0700 (PDT)