The Friday Letter, 9 October
Four things landed on the desk worth setting down before the ink dries.
First.
Kamoa-Kakula is back on form. Ivanhoe Mines reported that quarterly copper output at its Democratic Republic of Congo operation jumped 19%, with higher mining rates and improved underground access clearing the bottleneck that had capped tonnes through the mill for much of the year. The rebound lands against COMEX copper at 6.6965 USD per pound, up 1.7% on the day, which means the DRC is adding supply into a market that just paid up for it.
Second.
Zambia has restored excise duty on fuel from this month, reversing a suspension that had kept pump prices lower through the copperbelt haulage season. The timing is awkward: diesel futures priced at 4.7357 USD per gallon are up 4.2% on the day and Brent crude at 104.15 USD per barrel is up 3.8%, so the duty comes back onto a rising import cost rather than a falling one.
Third.
Saipem has been picked to run technical services on Profertil's planned expansion in Argentina, centred on a new urea plant rated at 4,450 tonnes a day. The work, done alongside Techint and built on Topsoe ammonia and thyssenkrupp Uhde granulation technology, is an eleven-month study contract rather than a sanctioned build, but it is the first hard capacity number attached to the project. It arrives with urea trading at 441 USD a tonne, up 1.4% on the day.
Fourth.
Brussels has named 46 projects for its new critical minerals fast track, and two of them belong to KGHM in Poland, together worth 2.4 billion dollars. It is a small but pointed signal that Europe wants copper processing capacity it does not have to source from the DRC or Zambia, even as both of those corridors are, this week, adding tonnes rather than losing them.
Signed off
- Baltic Dry slipped to 2,917 points, down 1.9% on the day, as the dry bulk fleet keeps growing faster than it ages out.
- Zambia's minerals ministry says a deal with Washington is still being negotiated, with no minerals named yet.
- MMG continues to press Brussels over the stalled Anglo American tie-up, unchanged since the complaint was first filed.