Energy

A wrap of events affecting the market on Friday night and the weekend and a preview of the week ahead.

A glance through the latest expert views and predictions about commodities, with Goldman Sachs lifting its zircon estimates, analysts updating on the natural gas and iron ore markets and arbitrage activity in copper.

Rio Tinto delivered a better than expected interim result and along with increasing earnings estimates brokers are viewing favourably the company’s return to a focus on growth.

Wall Street hung slightly lower all session on little volume. Dow down 5. (Locked for subscribers until 10:00 AEST)

A glance through the latest expert views and predictions about commodities, with fundamentals looking positive for both copper and oil and Deutsche Bank highlighting some scope for minor changes to estimates in the steel sector.

Technical analysts at Barclays Capital see different paths ahead for crude oil and gold in the next few sessions.

Tuesday night saw weak economic data and earnings, and last night saw the opposite. Reverse everything, Dow up 44.

A glance through the latest expert views and predictions about commodities with supply seen as the key to platinum prices, oil prices expected to consolidate above US$80 and some new coverage of Oz iron ore plays.

Organisations from Exxon to the Bill Gates Foundation have invested heavily in the race to produce biofuel from algae. One Australian company is ahead of the game, and is now in the process of an IPO.

Barclays chartists have been surprised by crude oil’s strong surge, as well as by gold’s frustrating performance.