Commodities Focus

The cost to ship goods on containers are climbing as additional premiums, such as the priority-loading premium, take hold in the market. The premium, which can be from 50-70% over the freight all kinds rate for Southeast Asia to the US and Europe routes, ranges from $2,000-3,500/FEU. S&P Global Platts Container Market experts Ng Bao Ying and Parisha Tyagi examine how the rise in rates echoes a tig...

Mexico's Pemex recently announced it had discovered more than 1.2 billion barrels of oil equivalent in an onshore complex in the state of Tabasco, near the site where the company is planning to build its Dos Bocas refinery. That's a large discovery, but there are serious questions about Pemex's ability to reach its stated production goals. S&P Global Platts editors Sheky Espejo in Mexico City and...

Brazil's Center-South region will kick off the 2021-22 sugar and ethanol crop season April 1 and producers are betting again on high international sugar prices and depreciated Brazilian real to increase their profitability. Fuel demand was initially forecast to increase in 2021; however, as the country has moved back to further social distancing measures, the forecasts have been revised down. S&P...

China consumes around 50% of world's copper and will continue to play a critical role in the market this year. S&P Global Platts metals experts Keith Tan and Han Lu examine China's appetite for copper concentrates as its economy recovers from the coronavirus pandemic. They also discuss what the market can expect in the second quarter, and give methodology and specification details on Platts clean...

US plug-in electric vehicles accounted for 2.6% of total sales in December, tied with Nov. 2020 for a record high and year-to-date PEVs account for just shy of 2% of all light duty vehicles sold in the US, according to S&P Global Platts Analytics. However, recent large orders for electric buses and other fleet vehicles suggest that sector could play a leading role in the proliferation of EVs in th...

The current European Commission is the greenest ever as it pushes toward carbon neutrality by 2050. Gas —despite being a fossil fuel— is considered by many as having a key role to play in Europe's energy transition, and the industry is working hard on ways to decarbonize gas and secure the future of Europe's vast gas infrastructure, including through the growing use of hydrogen . Following an inte...

Refinery outages from the cold snap on the US Gulf Coast Feb. 15-19 put even more bearish pressure on the already weak Americas clean tanker market, and heightened diesel prices in the USGC. With petroleum product demand still low globally, the Americas clean tanker market continues to move along the freight floor as typical arbitrages to Europe and Latin America remain closed. Heightened diesel p...

The global styrene market has risen sharply in February, driven by a number of factors around the world, including production issues in Europe and severe winter storms in Texas. Matthew Cook, associate editorial director for Americas petrochemicals coverage for S&P Global Platts, discusses the recent trends with Platts editors Simon Price in London, Emily Burleson in Houston and Tess Tseng in Sing...

Commodities have witnessed a broad upturn in prices across the board in recent months. In a discussion with S&P Global Platts Asia Energy Editor  Sambit Mohanty , veteran commodities investor and chairman of Beeland Interests Inc  Jim Rogers  says that oil's future would still be looking good 10 years from now, energy transition will find strong support from governments across the globe, while agr...

Ira Joseph, head of generating fuels and electricity power pricing for S&P Global Platts, and Ryan Ouwerkerk, manager of Americas natural gas pricing, are joined by Kelsey Hallahan and Arsalan Syed, pricing specialists from the North American natural gas team, to untangle the historic Texas freeze and subsequent price movements and what it means for US and global gas markets.

Commodity prices, as assessed by S&P Global Platts , are hitting fresh highs, sparking a debate around a potential supercycle. Goldman Sachs' global head of commodity research Jeff Currie, who identified the last supercycle in the early 2000s spoke with Platts associate director Paul Hickin about why and how it's different this time around, what it means for oil, copper and the energy transition,...

Rising levels of piracy in the Gulf of Guinea are having a direct impact on tanker owners' preferences, altering both crude and refined trade flows in and out of the West African coast. S&P Global Platts Shipping editors Charlotte Bucchioni, Chris To, and Sam Eckett take a deep look into how the markets are changing as a result of these attacks, from Nigeria's removal of the Security Anchorage Are...

The push to transition away from fossil fuel-fired power generation in the US relies heavily on energy storage projects that facilitate renewable energy growth, with several states mandating energy storage capacity targets. However, valuing battery energy storage attributes can vary significantly between power markets, customers and applications. In this edition of the Platts Commodities Focus pod...

Josh Pedrick, S&P Global Platts managing editor for Americas biofuels pricing, and Corey Lavinsky, adviser for biofuels analytics, discuss the recent surge in prices for renewable identification numbers and trends to watch. High prices in corn and soybean oil futures, key feedstocks for US biofuel producers, have supported the market even as policy uncertainty leaves questions about how much biofu...

Ira Joseph of S&P Global Platts Analytics and Ryan Ouwerkerk, manager of Americas natural gas pricing for S&P Global Platts, discuss key market fundamentals following the historic JKM price movements of early January and the trickle-down impact on TTF, and what's next for the global gas market as it moves into the latter part of winter.

The European ethylene and propylene markets rallied in January after an unusually strong December. In this episode of the Commodities Focus podcast, Abdulaziz Ehtaiba and Miguel Cambeiro discuss the drivers behind supply shortages in the market and their impact on downstream derivatives, whilst Callum Colford provides insight into what has been going on in the increasingly bearish butadiene market...

2021 has already seen all-time highs for both container and LNG freight rates and this strength appears set to last until firmly into the first quarter. S&P Global Platts Shipping Managing Editor Sam Eckett is joined by editors George Griffiths and Wyatt Wong as they look into what these markets have in store and how long this bullish run is likely to extend.

In the latest installment of the S&P Global Platts Commodities Focus podcast, Jason Lindquist, S&P Global Platts senior digital editor, and Harry Weber, a Platts senior natural gas writer in Houston, 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 fourth quarter of 2020. Volumes, price...

Ira Joseph, head of gas and power for S&P Global Platts Analytics, and Ryan Ouwerkerk, manager of Americas natural gas pricing for S&P Global Platts, are back with their first podcast of 2021 to discuss the remarkable price and market movements that have ushered in 2021, stretching from the historic drivers of JKM to $20/MMBtu to the trickle-down impact the surge has had on European and US markets...

S&P Global Platts coal market editors Fred Wang, Sarah Matthews, and Tyler Godwin, and lead coal analyst Matthew Boyle discuss the dynamics of the global thermal coal market, the fundamentals driving demand and supply, and the changes in consumption and production behaviors as the world continues to battle the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.

As the world economy begins to recover from the pandemic, Mexico is considering the construction of an LNG export terminal in the port of Salina Cruz to use excess natural gas in the country. Douglas Shanda, CEO of private developer Mexico Pacific Limited, which also has a similar project, spoke to S&P Global Platts about the country's potential as an export hub.

2020 was an unusual year for the global rice market. While much of the coverage focused on Asian markets, the Americas dealt with major production swings, huge influxes in demand and the resulting price volatility. In the latest Platts Agriculture Focus podcast, Peter Storey is joined by Raymond Shi and William Bland to discuss supply issues and harvesting in South America, demand for rice from th...

Seafarers are key to keeping the world's supply chain and maritime trade flowing. However, thousands of seafarers have been stuck on board and unable to get ashore due to coronavirus restrictions. Shipping market participants are making calls to governments to ease the restriction imposed on making crew changes in their countries. To discuss this and the developments in freight markets, S&P Global...

Elliot Mainzer took over as president and CEO of the California Independent System Operator in September as has been focused on recovering from the August rotating outages and preparing for next summer, while also looking ahead to modernize the resource adequacy system for the wave of storage and renewables coming onto the grid. Mainzer sat down with Kassia Micek, Platts North American power news...

Ira Joseph, head of gas and power for S&P Global Platts Analytics, and Ryan Ouwerkerk, manager of Americas natural gas pricing for S&P Global Platts, dive into the dynamics driving the meteoric rise of JKM in December, stretching from constraints in the Panama Canal to role of freight rates & reloads in driving JKM higher. While this has pulled TTF higher, NYMEX Henry Hub has continued to be overw...