Brent above 100 dollars, WTI near 90, a US blockade off Iran and Chilean copper down two-thirds of a million tonnes. The week the Gulf started setting the price of things it does not even ship.
The Gulf, and everything downstream of it
Oil is doing the thing everyone spent two years insuring against. Brent crossed 100 dollars on 23 July, WTI settled around 90, both at two-month highs, after Houthi forces claimed strikes on Saudi tankers and on Aramco's Jazan refinery, 400,000 barrels a day, plus facilities at Yanbu. The Strait of Hormuz is being described as intermittently closed, with US Air Force tankers overhead and CENTCOM footage of a sanctioned vessel being struck. The OFAC-listed tanker DISHA was hit near Hormuz carrying nearly 30 crew, most of them Indian.
What matters for anyone moving cargo through the Gulf: loading tempo at Kuwait's Al Ahmadi and Saudi Jubail is reportedly thinning, war-risk premiums are climbing, and the sulphur and urea that leave Jubail, Ruwais and Ras Laffan now carry a freight and insurance surcharge whether or not a molecule is ever spilled. Refined-product supply is the tight point, not just crude.
Copper's Chilean hole
The bullish copper story is being written in Chile by absence. First-half output fell hard at the majors: Codelco down 18.3 percent, Escondida down 17.6, Collahuasi down 19.3, an annualised loss north of 654,000 tonnes, more than the world's second-largest mine produces in a year. Antofagasta's Los Pelambres is under investigation after rains forced a water discharge. Anglo American, meanwhile, reported flat first-half copper and cut its 2026 cost guidance as it moves toward the Teck merger. Every tonne Chile does not deliver raises the premium on Copperbelt units that can.
Phosphate and nitrogen plumbing
Two quieter moves reshaping fertilizer flows. Koch Ag and OCP agreed a new phosphate joint venture, tying a major US distributor tighter to Moroccan rock. And Washington's fresh tariffs on Canada carved out fertilizers, keeping Saskatchewan potash flowing south duty-free. On the build side, KBR won the ammonia technology slot for Pampa Energía's Argentine plant.
Also moving
- Zimbabwe tapped Chinese partners for a 300 million dollar lithium project, deepening its role as feedstock to Beijing's battery industry.
- KoBold Metals broke ground at Mingomba near Chililabombwe, one of the richest undeveloped copper deposits in Zambia.
- Russia extended its gasoline export ban to year-end, with Novak calling full stabilisation premature.
- Ebola deaths in the DRC passed 1,000, with officials appealing for emergency funding.