China's renewed momentum to drive commodities: Clyde Russell

However, it's a good policy for any analyst to look back at what they wrote over the past year and ascertain where they were on the money and where they were wrong as this helps gain an understanding of what may occur in the future.

In a review and outlook piece similar to this one I wrote in December last year, I said there was "little evidence to support the bearish view that China is poised for a hard landing."

I thought that China, the world's largest commodity buyer and consumer, would experience a soft landing, with weaker outcomes in the first and second quarter.

Turns out that while the call for a soft landing was correct, my timing was out and the slowing of both growth and commodity demand came in the middle two quarters.

This delay in the expected soft patch influenced a whole range of other calls, including one I made that China's crude imports were as high as they were likely to get after they reached 5.95 million barrels per day (bpd) in February.

At the time I thought the Chinese wouldn't stockpile more crude given the high Brent price of above $120 a barrel, but I didn't count on the worries about the loss of Iranian supplies because of Western sanctions against Tehran's nuclear programme.

Crude imports eventually topped out for the year at 6 million bpd

... contd.