Saturday, 1 August. A cobalt producer buys itself four months, the Gulf reminds tanker owners who sets the route, and the exchange that lists metal brands wants to do it twice as fast.
Who owns a 99-year-old cobalt company by Christmas?
Not settled, and that is the point. Sherritt International rebuffed its largest investor's request for a special meeting to vote out chairman Peter Hancock and one other director, arguing the request was ineffective under Canadian law because an annual meeting had already been called. That meeting is 15 December. Kyma Capital, which holds about a third of Sherritt's notes and roughly 15% of its shares, points out that exclusive talks with Gillon Capital, the Texas family office of former Trump adviser Ray Washburne, expire on 12 October, two months before shareholders get to vote. Kyma's chief investment officer called the schedule choreography. Sherritt halted its Cuban nickel and cobalt mine in February after the US fuel blockade, said in May it would seek to dissolve the island joint venture, and last month warned that its ability to continue as a going concern was in doubt if lenders demanded early repayment. Cobalt sat at 56,290 dollars a tonne on Friday, unchanged on the day.
What stopped in the Strait of Hormuz?
Two tankers, by the IRGC's own account carried on Tasnim, with four more turning back on Friday morning after taking a southern route the Guards call unauthorised while under US military air escort. Brent closed at 90.12 dollars a barrel, up 2.0% on the day. For anyone lifting sulphur out of Ras Tanura or Ruwais, or urea out of Ras Laffan and Sohar, the number that moves first is not the barrel, it is the war-risk line on the charter party, and that one reprices on Monday morning in London rather than on a wire at the weekend.
Why halve the wait for a new metal brand?
The London Metal Exchange has proposed cutting the minimum production period a producer must show before a brand listing application can be considered, from twelve months to six. Read that from Kolwezi or Chililabombwe rather than from Leadenhall Street. A new cathode or hydroxide brand reaching deliverable status half a year sooner is half a year less of discount-to-benchmark selling for producers coming up in Congo and on the Zambian Copperbelt. COMEX copper finished at 6.4655 dollars a pound, up 2.0%. Chile, for the record, produced 447,294 tonnes in June, 5.1% more than a year earlier, and still logged its weakest second quarter in nineteen years.
Who is hiring in Kinshasa?
The Congolese government has opened the recruitment of directors at 15 state enterprises to competition, a governance change with commercial teeth: those boards sign the logistics, power and port contracts that decide what a tonne costs to move. Alongside it, the Fonds de Promotion de l'Industrie is touring BENELUX with a 420 million dollar, three-year investment pitch. Separately, CMOC has rejected accusations that uranium levels at Tenke Fungurume exceeded permitted thresholds, a claim worth following because radioactivity limits are what stop a copper or cobalt cargo at a border post rather than at a smelter gate.
Is freight telling us anything?
Yes, and it is saying pay up. The Baltic Dry Index rose 59 points to 2,732 on Friday, a 2.2% gain and the highest reading since 27 July, with capesizes doing the work even as Brazilian iron ore exports run behind last year through the first half. Grain went the other way: CBOT wheat settled at 639.25 cents a bushel, down 3.1% on the day. Cheap wheat and dear freight is an awkward combination for anyone quoting delivered East Africa on a Monday.