3 ways to play commodities from Goldman's Currie

Oil and copper markets breathed a sigh of relief Tuesday, but supply-and-demand concerns may hold these commodities back longer term, an expert told CNBC's " Power Lunch " Tuesday.

U.S. oil (New York Mercantile Exchange: @CL.1) settled at new 2016 highs Tuesday, while copper futures (CEC:Commodities Exchange Centre: @HG.1) popped 0.46 percent. But instead, Jeffrey Currie, global head of commodities research at Goldman Sachs, said he's eyeing natural gas (New York Mercantile Exchange: @NG.1) for the year to come, which traded more than 3 percent lower on the day.

Despite large stockpiles of natural gas right now, supply is coming off and natural gas may actually be a short market if there is demand this winter, Currie said.

"Right now we have a problem," Currie said. "We actually have too much gas inventory and we've seen no weather. It's actually one of the rainiest seasons in Washington since 1885 — there's no summer love. So you put that together and it creates a lot of weakness in the near term. But in the backdrop, supply is coming off because of the decline in drilling."

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Currie thinks drillers will focus on shale where there is natural gas, not oil, as a stronger dollar weighs on oil prices.

Setbacks in several oil-exporting nations may fail to make a dent in crude inventories around the world, Currie said, as others swoop in to supplement drawn-down stock.

"What barrel of oil is going to replace that decline in inventory at the margin?" Currie said. "I think there's a big risk that [it's] some of these low-cost players, such as Iran, such as Iraq, who have surprised to the upside. That's one of the key reasons that we have prices going back down to 45 [dollars a barrel] in the first quarter of next year."

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The same situation that plagues oil prices — with low-cost players jumping in to pump up supply — is even worse for metals, Currie said. On top of that, Currie said, China's demand for building materials (like metals) may not be positive going forward as the country mounts an economic transition.

"You combine a weak demand outlook with lots of supply from low-cost players, it creates a pretty bearish outlook," Currie said.

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