Copper stockpiles on the London Metal Exchange surged by the most in four years, signalling weak demand in Asia. The 42,175-tonne inflow took inventories to the highest since 2019, with the material flooding into locations in South Korea and Taiwan.
That indicates tepid consumption in China, where the LME has no warehouses.
European natural gas prices are staging a rally with two consecutive double-digit weekly advances. An incursion by Ukraine into Russia’s bordering Kursk region last week put a key gas transit point at risk.
The slide in US benchmark crude prices in recent weeks is masking a physical market that’s showing signs of steadily tightening up. While West Texas Intermediate futures have fallen about 5 percent since June 21, US crude stockpiles have shrunk by 6,8 percent in that period. The premium for barrels that are immediately available over later-dated ones is also up in that timeframe and jumped sharply last week, typically an indication of demand outpacing supply.
The US Department of Agriculture will publish its monthly supply and demand report on August 12. Traders, on average, expect the agency to hike its already record-high estimates for yields of America’s two most widely grown crops: corn and soybeans.
Clean ammonia production could grow as much as 30-fold this decade, making up as much as 13 percent of global ammonia supply by 2030, according to new research from BloombergNEF.
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