Five entries in the book today, in the order the desk took them. A shipping war that the wheat price refuses to price, a Congolese decree with real tonnages behind it, and a gasoline contract that fell 9 per cent in a session while diesel did not move at all.
Wheat is losing the argument with its own headlines. Chicago wheat printed 635.75 cents a bushel, down 2.3 per cent on the day and heading for a third consecutive weekly loss, which is a strange thing to do in a week when a German-owned bulker was hit by a drone in the Black Sea and Ukrainian traders put a month on the clock before export volumes return to where they were. The premium is going somewhere. It is going into hull cover, into war-risk lines and into road haulage tariffs, which are climbing as Ukrainian and Russian cargo reroutes overland. Russian domestic values have softened under the sea blockade to the point where discounted Russian wheat is now moving into Kazakhstan, and Kazakhstan has become the largest single buyer of Omsk-region grain this season. A blockade that lowers the seller's price and raises the buyer's freight is a blockade that shows up on the wrong line of the invoice.
Kinshasa's concentrate ban has a paper trail and a number. The interministerial order of 29 June 2026, signed by Daniel Mukoko Samba, Louis Watum Kabamba and Julien Paluku Kahongya, bars exports of copper and cobalt concentrates outright, with one-year derogations available at the discretion of the Mines Minister, replacing the framework in place since 4 August 2023. The first-quarter data explains why the government feels safe doing it: the DRC shipped 696,725 tonnes of copper cathode against 53,926 tonnes of concentrate containing 18,863 tonnes of metal, plus 51,940 tonnes of cobalt hydroxide holding 17,054 tonnes of cobalt. The exposed volume is small in percentage terms and concentrated in the handful of operations still running on waivers, Kamoa-Kakula among them. The order also taxes recoverable by-products at a 55 per cent valuation coefficient, with three months to declare before payment starts. COMEX copper closed at 6.678 dollars a pound, up 2.5 per cent.
The road that is meant to unclog Kasumbalesa has steel on site. GED Africa puts the Kasomeno-Mwenda corridor at 850 million dollars for 184 kilometres of road between Haut-Katanga and Zambia, a one-stop border post, toll infrastructure and a 362-metre cable-stayed bridge over the Luapula, the first of its kind built in the DRC, under 25-year public-private concessions from both governments. Deck steel arrived on the site in June. The Congolese section alone was costed at 252.4 million dollars by the ACGT at launch. Distance savings toward Dar es Salaam have been advertised at 500 kilometres in 2025 and about 250 kilometres in July 2026, depending on which route you compare against.
Gasoline broke and diesel did not. RBOB fell 9.1 per cent to 2.6972 dollars a gallon, roughly 963 dollars a tonne, while ULSD sat unchanged at 3.876 dollars a gallon, about 1,213 dollars a tonne, and Brent gave up 1.8 per cent to 82.24 dollars. European diesel meanwhile reached its highest level since April, US distillate exports are running at a record for 2026, and MOL has doubled its product buying with refinery output constrained. Two barrels of the same crude, two entirely different stories at the rack.
Nitrogen producers are banking it while buyers walk. CF Industries reported first-half net earnings of 1.34 billion dollars and adjusted EBITDA of 2.18 billion, with ICL also out on the quarter. The demand side is less cheerful: Nutrien's chief executive says Middle East war disruption is still deforming demand and pricing, and North American farmers have been cutting application rates after the price surge. Benchmark urea held at 388 dollars a tonne and DAP at 792.5, both unchanged on the day. In Lusaka, Omnia has begun construction on a fertilizer blending plant with the Zambian government, which is the sort of tonnage that gets bought at whatever the granular market is doing.
Elsewhere: raw sugar rose 5.1 per cent to 15.77 cents a pound, the Baltic Dry held at 3,057, palm oil eased 0.7 per cent to 4,655 ringgit, and Zambia's Kasenseli mine has still published no official gold production figure nearly two years after reopening.