Wire brief, 24 July
Koch takes an equity seat in Moroccan phosphate
Wichita's Koch Ag & Energy Solutions has agreed to buy 50% of OCP Nutricrops' JFC I, the Jorf Lasfar phosphate joint venture, deepening a partnership the two firms first widened only days earlier. The timing is the story: it lands right after Washington's temporary suspension of the countervailing duty that had hung over Moroccan phosphate imports since 2021. America's largest fertilizer trader is now part-owner of the rock it buys, which pulls Moroccan DAP and MAP supply further inside a single commercial tent. Separately, the latest round of US tariffs on Canada spared fertilizers, leaving Saskatchewan potash flowing south untaxed.
Urea firms as the Gulf gets jumpy
NOLA urea ratcheted up quickly at the US Gulf this week. Behind it sits a nervier freight picture: a week of back-and-forth US and Iran strikes has lifted shipping risk through Hormuz and the Red Sea, the two arteries for Gulf nitrogen and sulphur. Grain is pulling the same direction, with crop prices at a three-year high on heat waves and war fears, which keeps farm demand for nitrogen underpinned even at higher landed cost.
Copper: Anglo trims costs, Kalshi smells the AI trade
Copper traded around $5.64 a pound, up better than 2.5% on the day. Anglo American reported flat first-half copper output and cut its 2026 cost guidance while flagging losses at diamonds and coal, housekeeping ahead of its merger with Teck. On the demand side, prediction market Kalshi is weighing a new copper instrument as data-centre construction turns the metal into an AI proxy trade. Further out, Fitzroy is building the case for a near-term Chile mine targeting first production in 2028.
Zimbabwe locks in Chinese money and shuts the export door
State miner Mutapa Energy Resources has secured $300 million, including Chinese backers, to develop its Sandawana deposit, with Zhejiang Huayou and Tsingshan among the parties previously named. "It's a done deal," chief executive Innocent Rukweza said. The catch for buyers: Harare intends to halt lithium concentrate shipments from the start of 2027 to force domestic processing into sulphate and battery-grade chemicals. Zimbabwe already supplies roughly a tenth of the world's mined lithium, and it joins Guinea, Ghana and the DRC in trying to keep the value chain onshore rather than exporting raw feed.