Two chokepoints at once
The US-Iran fighting has run into a second week and now threatens two of the arteries that move Gulf energy and fertilizer to the world. Trump warned he would take out a bridge or power plant near Tehran for every strike on shipping in the Strait of Hormuz, while the Houthis declared an embargo on vessels through Bab el-Mandeb, leaving oil markets staring at blockages at both ends of the Red Sea. Brent briefly topped $95 a barrel and gold jumped back above $4,100 as buyers piled into havens in a second week of renewed fighting. For anyone moving urea, sulphur or ammonia out of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the UAE and Oman, the number to watch is not the oil price but the war-risk insurance premium and the tanker queue: physical Hormuz traffic is already falling, and Gulf nitrogen sits directly in the blast radius.
Phosphate money crosses the Atlantic
Koch has agreed to buy into Jorf Fertilizers Company I from OCP, creating a 50/50 venture at the Jorf Lasfar complex in Morocco with 1.2 million tonnes a year of phosphate capacity. Added to their existing Kofert venture, Koch and OCP now jointly control about 2.5 million tonnes a year at the world's largest phosphate platform, and the stated target is North America, helped along by Washington's temporary suspension of countervailing duties on Moroccan phosphate. On the nitrogen side, India on 15 July unveiled a policy meant to push it toward urea self-sufficiency, which would eventually pull the world's biggest importer out of the tender market. And closer to Sarpah's ground, Malawi cleared the Mulalo granular plant in Dowa District to start operations, another small step in East Africa building its own blending capacity.
Lithium's 2027 shadow
Lithium carbonate on the Guangzhou exchange fell to a five-month low near 143,000 yuan, having given back almost 30% from its mid-May high as a wave of restarts revived fears of a 2027 glut. CATL brought its Jianxiawo mine back after a new safety permit, returning some 46,000 tonnes of capacity, and Australian producers at Bald Hill, Finniss and Mt Marion are following. Washington sits on the other side, with the Pentagon soliciting about 16,000 tonnes of battery-grade carbonate at roughly $18,500 a tonne, below even today's depressed price. The one counter-signal is African: Zimbabwe refused to delay its ban on concentrate exports from 1 January, and has just added a freight rail option to its export gateway to cut the cost of trucking spodumene to port. Guinea, meanwhile, shipped a record 114.8 million tonnes of bauxite in the first half on Chinese demand, a reminder that the bulk-mineral corridors out of West Africa are running hot even as battery metals cool.