Monday's prints came in strange shapes, so the desk put the questions to itself.
Why did petrol fall eight per cent on a day crude rose?
RBOB gasoline printed 2.9872 USD/gal against 3.2551 the session before, a drop of 8.2%, or 1,066 USD per tonne. Diesel went with it, ULSD off 4.0% to 4.2758 USD/gal, 1,338 USD/t. Brent went the other way, up 1.3% to 92.85 USD/bbl, 703 USD/t. Crude firmer and the barrel's two biggest products softer is a refining-margin story rather than a supply story: the US summer driving season ends next weekend and the winter-grade specification switch lands in September, which is when the summer premium habitually leaves the screen. For anyone pricing product cargoes off a crude-linked formula into East Africa, the arithmetic moved in the buyer's favour by roughly a tenth in a day.
What put four per cent on wheat?
CBOT September wheat closed at 709.75 US cents a bushel, up from 680.25, a 4.3% session and 261 USD per tonne. It is the largest single-day move on the board today and it comes with the northern harvest supposedly weighing on the market. Buyers working Black Sea origination against paper hedges will find their offers stale this morning.
Who unloaded phosphate at New Orleans?
OCP North America confirmed that a vessel carrying approximately 54,000 t of triple superphosphate from Morocco has berthed at the Port of New Orleans, the first Moroccan phosphate cargo into the US since Washington granted temporary relief from countervailing duties on 29 June. Five years of restricted access sit behind it, and US domestic phosphate mining has fallen by more than half since 1995. DAP was unchanged at 792.50 USD/t on the day the cargo landed.
Where is Zambia's freight actually entering?
The Zambia Compulsory Standards Agency cleared 98,131 import consignments of general goods through eight border offices in 2025, up from 68,297 in 2024. Nakonde, on the Tanzanian border, took 29% of that, 28,946 consignments against 20,880 the year before, which makes the Dar es Salaam corridor the country's dominant inbound route for general cargo. The oddity is Ndola: 23,665 consignments in 2025 against 976 in 2024, a jump the agency's own analysts read as the formalisation of Copperbelt and DRC-bound trade rather than new volume appearing from nowhere.
How tight is Kinshasa's cash?
The Congolese Treasury expects a cash deficit of 774.0 billion CDF for August, against 660.8 billion CDF of public revenue mobilised by the collection services as of 13 August. Suppliers holding state receivables in the mining provinces should read the two numbers together.
And the uranium permit in Niger?
Niamey has awarded the permit for a mine formerly operated by Orano to a state company, the latest step in the military government's programme of taking direct control of the uranium industry. Western utilities with Nigerien tonnes in their contract books now have a counterparty that did not exist commercially two years ago.
Also on the tape
COMEX copper added 1.9% to 6.611 USD/lb, the firmest of the metals complex. Cobalt held at 56,290 USD/t and sulphur in China at 9,235.67 CNY/t, both unchanged. The Baltic Dry index sat still at 2,841 while brokers reported Capesizes firming on Pacific demand. Sugar #11 slipped 1.8% to 17.23 US cents a pound, with Ahmedabad retail still above 70 rupees a kilo. Palm oil eased 1.4% to 4,947 MYR/t. Ottawa and Washington exchanged a fresh round of tariffs across electronics, steel and dairy.