Friday's tape split the oil complex in two, put seven per cent on Chicago wheat and left a London warehouse fight running into the weekend.
Gasoline sheds 7.4 per cent while crude adds 0.9
RBOB settled at 2.9044 USD/gal, down from 3.1354, a 7.4 per cent fall worth roughly 83 dollars a tonne on the 1,037 USD/t equivalent. Diesel barely moved, ULSD easing 0.6 per cent to 4.1647 USD/gal, or 1,304 USD/t. Brent went the other way, up 0.9 per cent to 88.52 USD/bbl. A crude market bid on politics and a gasoline market sold on the end of the northern driving season is the cleanest crack divergence of the month, and it lands on importers who buy product cargoes off a crude-linked formula.
The barrel's politics: a blockade and a tanker truce
US forces fired on a Panama-flagged containership that tried to run the American blockade of Iran, the first shooting incident of that cordon to reach the wires. In the other theatre, Ukraine has agreed not to target some non-Russian oil tankers and a terminal, which takes a slice of war-risk premium out of Black Sea loadings without touching the Russian-flagged fleet. Owners will price those two facts differently by hull and by flag.
Chicago wheat up 49 cents in a session
CBOT wheat closed at 689.5 USc/bu against 640.5 prior, a 7.7 per cent jump to 253 USD/t and the largest single-day move on the panel. Nothing in the freight or fertiliser numbers moved with it. Buyers who held off through the 640s now face a market that has repriced roughly 18 dollars a tonne before any tender committee has had a chance to sit.
London copper: 370 dollars between August and September
LME August copper traded 370 dollars over September, the widest one-month spread since the 2021 squeeze that pushed the exchange into emergency intervention. COMEX held at 6.613 USD/lb, 14,579 USD/t, up 0.3 per cent on the day, with the Chilean annual average now at 6 dollars a pound. Codelco meanwhile reshuffled its mine leadership and general managers under chief executive Jorge Gomez, who is reviewing operations after irregularities in production reporting.
Fertiliser: the phosphate clock runs to 31 August
CoBank puts fertiliser prices above pre-war levels into 2028, counting 31 ammonia plants in the Middle East hit or shut, 49 curtailed across India, Pakistan and Bangladesh, and at least 20 damaged in Russia by drone attack. China's phosphate export ban runs through August and the report flags high sulphur prices as grounds to extend it. Urea sat at 390 USD/t and DAP at 795 USD/t, both unchanged.
Chinese money returns to Europe
Chinese investment in Europe reached 16.8 billion euros in 2025, the highest since 2018, concentrated in greenfield plant rather than acquisitions. That is capital arriving on the same continent whose ports and inland barges will move the grain repriced above.
On the tape. Baltic Dry 2,863, up 19 points after Thursday's 95-point drop to 2,844. Cobalt unchanged at 56,290 USD/t, sulphur unchanged at 1,409 USD/t on a flat Chinese quote. Sugar #11 up 0.8 per cent to 16.6 USc/lb, palm oil down 0.4 per cent to 4,710 MYR/t. In Lusaka the Electoral Commission released its first consolidated presidential results from four of 226 constituencies, with Hakainde Hichilema ahead and nine arrests in Matero over the killing of a polling agent. Potash had no print, free sources down.