Indeed, in the past decade or so, oil prices have lagged behind many industrial metals. But there are many reasons to curb the rise in oil prices, not just the collective price increase of commodities: 1. The high supply elasticity of oil and the low supply elasticity of metals are one of the fundamental reasons for the divergence in their trends. Speaking of which, after the rise in oil prices, the market usually increases production faster than metals. Especially for shale oil in the United States, a project can be dismantled into a large number of independent oil wells. After the rise in oil prices, oil companies can increase drilling rigs, complete inventory wells, improve single well efficiency, and see some new supply within a few months. OPEC can also release idle production capacity, and countries such as Brazil, Canada, and Guyana will also increase investment under high oil prices. EIA predicts that US crude oil production will be around 13.7 million barrels per day in 2026, and may rise to 14.2 million barrels per day in 2027, indicating that high oil prices will continue to stimulate non OPEC supply growth. Copper mines, bauxite mines, and other large metal mines are completely different. Firstly, it is necessary to discover sufficiently good ore bodies, and then complete exploration, financing, environmental approval, land negotiation, infrastructure construction, and mining construction. According to IEA statistics, mining projects used to take an average of about 16.5 years from discovery to formal production. To put it simply, even if copper prices skyrocket today, it will be difficult for a large copper mine to suddenly emerge next year. This means that once oil prices rise, new supply will appear faster, and after metal prices rise, supply may not be able to keep up for many years. 2. The oil market has long had the power to actively regulate supply. OPEC and OPEC+are already managing oil prices through production targets. Reduce production when oil prices are too low, and gradually restore production when oil prices are too high and demand is disrupted. Oil producing countries such as Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates certainly hope for an increase in oil prices, but they also do not want prices to remain high for a long time to destroy demand, accelerate new energy substitution, or push the global economy into recession. At the same time, oil also has a buffer layer of strategic reserves. The United States, China, Japan, South Korea, and Europe all reserve crude oil, and can stabilize prices by releasing inventory in case of sudden supply disruptions. Industrial metals also have inventory, but rarely have a globally coordinated government reserve system such as oil, which aims to stabilize prices and ensure energy security. So after the rise in oil prices, we are not only facing increased production by enterprises, but also multiple interventions such as OPEC policies, government reserve releases, diplomatic negotiations, and military. The impact of oil prices on global inflation and politics is far greater than that of a single industrial metal. The rise in copper prices will increase the production costs of power grids, automobiles, and electronic products, but the cost proportion of copper in end products is limited. Copper prices will rise by 30%, and the price of a mobile phone or a car will not increase synchronously by 30%. Enterprises can digest this by reducing profits, reducing other costs, using recycled copper, or delaying projects. The price of oil will quickly spread to gasoline, diesel, aviation fuel, shipping, chemicals, agriculture, and logistics. Almost all goods require transportation, and many industrial products also require oil as raw material. The continuous rise in oil prices is equivalent to taxing residents, businesses, and the government simultaneously. The higher the oil price, the greater the motivation for global government intervention, and central banks will also maintain high interest rates due to inflation. High interest rates further suppress real estate, automotive, aviation, and industrial activities, ultimately impacting oil demand through economic cooling. Therefore, the world cannot afford high oil prices, and the main limitation is the duration of high oil prices, which does not necessarily limit short-term peaks. The long-term demand growth rate for oil has slowed down, but the new demand for copper and aluminum is still accelerating. In the past decade, the fuel efficiency of automobiles has been continuously improving, and electric vehicles have begun to replace gasoline cars. The demand for oil in developed countries is gradually approaching its peak. Copper and aluminum face different demand structures. Grid expansion, data centers, electric vehicles, energy storage, renewable energy, national defense, and infrastructure all require large amounts of metals. The IEA predicts that copper demand may increase by about 30% from current levels by 2040, and one of the important sources of copper demand growth in the past two years has been investment in China's power grid. 5. Oil can be constantly replaced by new production, but high-quality metal resources are becoming increasingly difficult to find. Oil fields do indeed experience decline, but oil companies can rely on new technologies to increase recovery rates and expand exploration areas to continuously search for new marginal production. The shale oil revolution is the most typical example, directly changing the global oil supply pattern of the past decade. The problem faced by copper mines is the decline in ore grade. Even if the same amount of ore is mined, the amount of copper that can be extracted is decreasing, requiring more energy, water, and capital consumption. Large scale high-grade mineral deposits are becoming increasingly difficult to discover. 6. Oil is a flow commodity, while metals are closer to stock assets. After oil is extracted, it will eventually be consumed in automobiles, airplanes, factories, and chemical production, requiring continuous production every day. The amount of oil needed globally every day must be continuously supplied. After copper and aluminum are produced, they will exist in buildings, power grids, automobiles, and equipment for a long time, with a service life of several decades, and can also be recycled and reused. With the increasing level of global electrification, more and more copper and aluminum are being locked in infrastructure for a long time, and the inventory that can circulate freely may continue to decrease. Simply put, the biggest difference between oil, copper, and aluminum is that once oil prices rise, supply will quickly increase, and the government will also intervene, causing demand to be suppressed by high prices. But after the price increase of copper and aluminum, new mines cannot be opened for several years or even more than a decade. So it's not surprising that oil rose to $120 or $140 during the war, but the longer the high price persists, the stronger the reaction force. Copper, aluminum, and storage are more like long-term supply that cannot keep up with demand, and once prices enter an upward cycle, they often rise more than oil.