Five questions the desk put to itself on Monday, answered only with what printed.
Wheat added 5.1% in one session. What moved?
CBOT wheat closed at 686 US cents a bushel against 652.75 the session before, a 5.1% jump that works out at 252 USD per tonne. No fresh Black Sea export restriction, no GASC or OAIC award and no crop downgrade crossed the wire to carry it, which makes this a positioning move until an origin desk says otherwise. The fertiliser lines declined to confirm the story: urea slipped 1.0% to 386 USD per tonne and DAP sat unchanged at 795, and neither behaves like that when buyers believe in a durable grain rally.
Who is actually paying for cheap fuel in Kinshasa?
The oil companies, and then the treasury. The Congolese price committee spent 13 and 14 August certifying second-quarter losses and foregone margin for fuel importers and distributors, and validated 146.72 million dollars for the quarter: 110.43 million across the West and North supply zones, 31.19 million in the South zone that feeds Katanga, and 5.11 million in the East. Kinshasa held pump prices flat through the Gulf-driven cost spike, and with Brent back up 0.8% to 89.65 a barrel the third-quarter certification will not be smaller.
Is the sugar rally exportable?
Raw sugar #11 gained 2.4% to 16.82 US cents a pound, or 371 USD per tonne, and the Indian domestic market has run close to 10% higher in a month on thin rainfall in the producing belts. Two things are draining Indian cane away from the export book at the same time: fresh ethanol allocations, with BCL Industries' order book now at 15.11 crore litres and Associated Alcohols taking another 87.4 lakh litres from BPCL. Nigeria, meanwhile, has an over-one-billion-dollar domestic sugar programme under its National Sugar Development Council aimed at import substitution, which is a 2030s answer to a 2026 problem.
What does the new Congolese industrial census say about the copper belt?
The 2025 enterprise census, presented to the Council of Ministers on 14 August, counts 1,226 industrial units against 525 in 2017, with Kinshasa on 264, Haut-Katanga on 188 and Lualaba on 101. Those three hold 553 units, 54.5% of the national total, so the industrial map remains the mining map plus the capital. The government also began recovering arrears owed to the industrial promotion fund, the FPI, to recycle into new projects. Copper on COMEX rose 1.4% to 6.689 USD per pound, 14,747 per tonne, and cobalt held at 56,290.
Where is fertiliser demand visibly breaking?
Brazil. Verde AgriTech sold 46,709 tonnes in the second quarter against 80,354 a year earlier, with revenue down to CAN$3.4 million from CAN$4.8 million, while average gross profit per tonne edged up to CAN$23 from CAN$22. The reason is credit, not agronomy: 1,263 Brazilian agricultural businesses were in judicial reorganisation at the end of June, 66% more than a year before, with the Selic rate at 14.25% in June and 14.00% after quarter-end. Affordability, not need, is setting the size of the order.
Also on the tape
RBOB gasoline fell another 7.3% to 2.9244 USD per gallon, 1,044 per tonne, while Brent went the other way, so the crack keeps compressing. The Baltic Dry index was unchanged at 2,863 and no free potash print was available. Zambia's electoral commission has declared 135 constituencies with Hichilema's lead past half a million votes. Kinshasa ratified the joint maritime zone agreement with Angola, valued at up to 2.78 billion dollars of potential Congolese receipts, and in Ituri the Bunia-Kasenyi road was blocked after a vehicle overturned.