The copper that is no longer in the warehouse
Available copper in London Metal Exchange sheds has halved inside a fortnight. On-warrant stocks fell to 102,000 tonnes, the lowest since January, on BMO Capital Markets numbers, and the cash-to-three-month spread flipped into backwardation on 21 July for the first time this year, then widened. Backwardation is the market paying a premium for metal today over metal in ninety days, which is the tape's way of saying somebody needs cathode now.
COMEX copper settled at 6.49 dollars a pound on 31 July, up 2.4% on the session from 6.339. For anyone moving Katanga and Copperbelt cathode down to Durban, Beira or Dar es Salaam, a tight prompt market rewards speed over storage: material afloat is worth more than material warehoused, and the trucking queue at Kasumbalesa becomes a pricing input rather than a logistics complaint. The supply side is not standing still either. A resource update at Selkirk Copper's Minto mine in Yukon outlined 47.8 million measured and indicated tonnes at 0.89% copper, and Vale lifted its base metals outlook while posting a 35% fall in second-quarter net profit.
Abqaiq, again
Drones launched by Iran-aligned Iraqi groups reached the Abqaiq stabilisation complex on 27 July, with the Saudi defence ministry reporting several interceptions and fires at the facility. A Gulf official called the damage minor. Imagery circulating since then, reviewed by open-source analysts, shows burn scars beyond the compression tanks and multiple smaller damaged areas, with the suggestion the plant stays partly offline for a period. Satellite reads also point to damage at Yanbu, and the Jizan refinery remains down.
Brent closed at 90.10 dollars, up 2.0% from 88.36. The number that matters for the fertilizer book sits downstream of the crude: Abqaiq strips hydrogen sulphide out of Arab Light before export, and Saudi sulphur recovery feeds the granulated tonnes that end up in Zambian and Moroccan acid plants. India suspended sulphur exports on 29 July to protect domestic supply. Two constrained sources in one week is the sort of arithmetic that shows up in August offers rather than in July headlines.
Crush capacity goes long, freight stays flat
ADM is adding 700,000 tonnes of US oilseed crush capacity to serve biofuel demand, with further expansion under evaluation, while Japan's Zen-Noh has agreed a stake in Brazil's Grupo Cereal, which runs grain origination, inputs, processing and biofuels. Both are bets that the vegetable oil complex keeps pulling beans away from the export bin. Palm slipped to 4,640 ringgit, down 0.9%, and CBOT wheat eased to 655 cents from 660. CPKC reported second-quarter grain revenue up almost 25% year on year even as net income fell, which is North American rail telling you the crop moved. The Baltic Dry index sat unchanged at 2,673 after Thursday's 1.6% rebound.
Counted today
- 289 tonnes of net central bank gold buying in the second quarter, five times the revised 57 tonnes of the first and a record for a second quarter.
- Zimbabwe's half-year lithium exports up 230%, now about 12% of mineral export revenue.
- DRC public debt at 15.52 billion dollars at end-2025, with GDP per head projected at 1,122 dollars for 2026.
- Urea at 430 dollars a tonne, up 1.8% from 422.50, with DAP unmoved at 802.50.
- Ethiopian Airlines carried 20.7 million passengers in the year to 7 July, up 8%.