Commodities Focus

The price of the global Japonica market's benchmark, US #1, 4% broken white rice, is reaching highs not seen in ten years at quite an unfortunate time. Freight from California remains incredibly difficult to source, especially at an affordable rate for buyers. Meanwhile, other Japonica origins, such as Australia and China continue to steadily chip away at market share amid pressure to export their...

Ciaran Roe and Ira Joseph break down the unprecedented price movements in recent LNG and gas markets. The discussion focuses on how we arrived at this point of unusual tightness and whether the conditions that brought us here will persist. Then the discussion turns to the evolving pricing relationship between JKM and TTF, how LNG imports have been trading above Europe's main gas hub for months, an...

While energy prices are moving higher and higher, there's a clear laggard in the commodities space: the tanker freight market. Why are clean and dirty tankers not keeping pace? S&P Global Platts shipping market experts Pradeep Rajan, Vickey Du and Sameer C. Mohindru examine the factors shaping the clean and dirty tanker markets, and their path to recovery.

S&P Global Platts crude editors Maria Eugenia Garcia and Fred Wang discuss with Senior analyst Richard Capuchino, Jr. the latest developments in light, sweet crude production in the Atlantic Coast of South America. These new grades are receiving strong interest globally, but particularly from Asia, as refiners seek to reduce sulfur content in refined products.

Natural gas storage inventories in the US have crept within 5% of the five-year average and Canada is pushing even higher as the injection season winds down. However, key hubs throughout the US and Canada are reporting prices not maintained since the dawn of the shale revolution due to North America's newfound exposure to global gas market forces. If the US and Canada experience a colder-than-norm...

In the latest installment of the S&P Global Platts Commodities Focus podcast, Harry Weber, a Platts senior natural gas writer in Houston, is joined by Dania El Saadi and Claudia Carpenter in Dubai. Dania is a Platts senior editor, Middle East news, and Claudia is Platts editorial lead, Middle East crude. They discuss the recently completed Gastech, the biggest in-person gathering of gas market par...

As Europe struggles to replenish natural gas inventories, prices reach all-time highs, with Platts Analytics forecasting even more gas-to-oil switching throughout the coming winter. While European gas and power supply and demand hangs in balance, market participants look to controversial Nord Stream 2 for a sign of hope, as the project enters certification proceedings. S&P Global Platts Managing E...

Global polyethylene prices and trade flows have been hit by challenge after challenge, from the coronavirus pandemic since early 2020, the deep freeze in the US in February, to the recent container shortage that has driven freight rates to record highs. With the hurricane season still on in the US, new quality standards expected to be implemented in India, logistical issues in Europe, and polyethy...

A lack of vessel space, high freight costs, port backlogs and a shortage of truck drivers, the logistical challenges facing the plastics industry have multiplied across 2021. Join Platts petrochemical editors Aziz Ehtaiba, Sarah Trinder and Callum Colford as they discuss what this has meant for polymers and ask Platts Analytics Yi-Jeng Huang what's next for the markets.

Emerging economies and their successful vaccine rollouts will be key to the short-term recovery of the oil tanker market, after the highs of 2020, as it works through a period of low freight rates. International Seaways CEO Lois Zabrocky and Platts EMEA senior writer for transport fuels Tom Washington discuss the state of the market and where it is pointing.

California has one of the most aggressive clean energy goals in the US and the state leads the US in utility-scale solar capacity and battery storage capacity. More recently, discussions have picked up regarding offshore wind in the West. Platts power news editor Kassia Micek discussed with Commissioner Karen Douglas the work the California Energy Commission is doing to develop offshore wind along...

Germany goes to the polls on September 26 in the most open contest for years. As Chancellor Angela Merkel prepares to step down, S&P Global Platts' news and analytics experts discuss the daunting energy challenges facing her successor. The rally in natural gas prices adds uncertainty and may overshadow coalition talks that will set the framework for the coming four years as the new government has...

Leaders in the public and private sector are faced with the possibility of more frequent and intense weather events -- winter storms, heat waves, cyclones, wildfires -- as anthropogenic climate change continues, and must decide whether they should "price in" the risk of such events in building more robust and sustainable energy infrastructure. Michael Webber, chief technology officer at Energy Imp...

Tariff uncertainty, high freight rates, labor issues and other dynamics have combined with supply constraints and healthy demand to elevate global aluminum premiums. And all that's happening as the value chain -- from producers to end-users -- is grappling with decarbonization and other big-picture challenges. Hear from S&P Global Platts senior North America aluminum editors Tina Allagh and Sarah...

Companies operating in Latin America have set their eyes on nascent opportunities in the region like Guyana and Brazil, as Mexico has put the liberalization of its upstream sector on hold. But the attractiveness of the 25 billion barrels of oil equivalent found in the deepwater Gulf of Mexico has not been lost because of politics. We talked with Sergio Pimentel, a partner at Mexico City consultanc...

New York has one of the most aggressive decarbonization plans in the country through its Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, which sets goals for building several gigawatts of renewable energy capacity, including offshore wind, battery storage and the transmission lines to connect those resources with urban demand centers, particularly New York City. In this edition of the Platts Comm...

Sustainability is currently a key theme in the world of commodities. Recycled plastics and recycled metals have garnered considerable attention given how widely plastics and metals are used in downstream consumer products including food packaging and electronics. S&P Global Platts market experts  Samuel Chin ,  Miranda Zhang , and  Eric Su  explore the differences and similarities of these materia...

Container shipping markets have been tagged as red hot because base box rates have more than quintupled since the market began its steep hike north in May 2020 amid the pandemic's operational and logistical constraints. But because exorbitantly high base rates are no longer the ticket to getting a box on a ship or a guarantee of timely delivery, the market has been shaped by measures such as carri...

Jonty Rushforth, Senior Director of Markets and Energy Transition, and Paula VanLaningham, Platts Global Head of Carbon, talk about the devastating wildfires sweeping across the globe and the challenges facing Nature-Based Carbon Credits as the market reckons with Offset Permanence in the face of rising global temperatures. For more discussions on all topics related to the Energy Transition, make...

Plastic usage and recycling has become a hot-button topic recently, as the push for sustainable products is forefront in manufacturing goals. Aluminum has long been touted the beverage package of choice because of the perceived sustainability it offers, but are the two closer in the race for sustainability than we think? We take a closer look at the economic and environmental sustainability of rec...

S&P Global Platts senior natural gas writer Harry Weber, S&P Global Market Intelligence senior midstream finance reporter Allison Good and Platts managing editor for Americas LNG Luke Stobbart discuss current trends in the North American midstream sector as operators of gas pipelines and LNG export terminals prepare to release financial results for the second quarter of 2021. Investors will be wat...

US refineries have ramped up production in the second quarter as domestic demand for gasoline and diesel grows and global energy markets begin to adjust back to pre-pandemic demand and production levels. Increasing US Gulf Coast refinery utilization has had an adverse impact to clean and dirty tanker freight in the Americas, however, leaving shipowner earnings at less-than-favorable levels. S&P Gl...

In this episode of the S&P Global Platts Agriculture Focus podcast, the Platts EMEA Agriculture team discusses how the prices of different agricultural commodities, from wheat, corn and rice, to veg oils, sugar and biodiesel, have fared during the coronavirus pandemic and whether we can expect any knock-on effects in the coming months.

Cheniere, the biggest exporter of LNG in the US, is working to secure sufficient buyer interest for a proposed mid-scale expansion at its Corpus Christi liquefaction facility in Texas. It is also pursuing initiatives to reduce its carbon footprint at Corpus Christi and at its Sabine Pass export terminal in Louisiana, and give customers more information about the life-cycle emissions of its cargoes...

Raw feed materials have seen unprecedented growth in prices, putting a dent in the Asian feedmakers' margins. In this podcast, S&P Global Platts editors Elizabeth Thang , Takmila Shahid , and Ivy Li examine factors impacting the buying patterns of Asian customers, including supply and demand fundamentals, the impact of weather conditions on prices, as well as the current hog farm situation in Chin...