Goldman sees Brent at $80/b within 6 months, commodities up 13.5%

London (Quantum Commodity Intelligence) - Goldman Sachs maintained its bullish outlook for commodities in the post-pandemic rebound, saying it expects global commodities markets to rally by another 13.5% over the next six months, according to a research note Wednesday.

Goldman has been the most bullish among the investment banks since the second half of 2020, issuing a series of upbeat outlooks for commodities during the post-pandemic recovery. The bank cited the upcoming reversal of coronavirus curbs, lower interest rates and a weaker dollar for its latest outlook paper.

The US bank now expects North Sea Brent prices to reach $80/b during the next six months, while US WTI is seen $77/b over the same time period.

Quantum Energy assessed cash Brent at $66.34/b at Wednesday's Singapore close (0830 GMT), while cash WTI was assessed at $62.85/b.

"We expect the biggest jump in oil demand ever, a 5.2 million barrels per day (bpd) rise over the next six months," Goldman said, citing acceleration of vaccinations in Europe and soaring travel demand.

In precious metals Goldman sees gold prices reaching $2,000 per ounce over the next six months, but added it was too early for Bitcoin to act as a series competitor with gold as safe haven investment, but said the two can co-exist.

"While Bitcoin benefits from greater liquidity, it suffers from lack of real use and weak environmental, social, governance (ESG) scoring, due to its high energy consumption," said GS in the report.

Such extensive energy use made the cryptocurrency vulnerable to losing its "store of value" demand to another, better-designed contender, it added.

On metals, Goldman sees continued strong demand from China and fresh record highs, including a 12-month target of $11,000 per metric ton for copper, citing under-investment on the supply side.