China Power Crunch Unleashes Turmoil in Commodities Markets
- Energy curbs are limiting production and boosting prices
- Soybean processors to aluminum smelters are shuttering output
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China’s power-hungry commodities producers are in Beijing’s firing line, but the government’s efforts to stave off a full-blown energy crisis are also fueling rallies in everything from fertilizer to silicon.
Production of metals from aluminum to steel has been spluttering for months as power curbs have intensified across key industrial provinces. Now factories producing high-end goods are starting to feel the pinch too, creating burgeoning risks to the nation’s economic growth. What’s worse, the energy crunch is spreading to a sector that alarms Beijing the most: food.