The Telex, 15 October
Four lines off the wire today, in no particular order of drama.
SULPHUR
Chinese sulphur fell 6.9% to 998 USD/t (6,669 CNY/t) as of Wednesday's print, and the move has company. The Economist is out arguing a shortage could hurt mines and farms that both depend on sulphuric acid, one for copper leaching, the other for phosphate rock. Lithuania's Lifosa has now confirmed it suspended fertiliser production back in August as raw material costs climbed, a stoppage only surfacing in the press now. Morocco's OCP, the world's largest phosphate rock producer, is meanwhile opening its doors to foreign investors as the Iran war squeezes its financing. DAP held flat at 802.5 USD/t and urea ticked up just 0.6% to 452.5 USD/t. Neither has caught up with the sulphur move yet.
CONGO
Belgian federal police raided properties tied to the Tshisekedi family as part of a mining-sector corruption investigation. Washington, separately, says it has signed 160 agreements worth roughly 40 billion USD since January 2025 to lock in critical mineral supply, with the Lobito corridor named as the flagship: a rail line carrying copper and cobalt from the DRC and Zambia to the Angolan port of Lobito on the Atlantic coast, bypassing the usual southern and eastern routes entirely.
BALTIC
A tanker fire off Romania's Black Sea coast has left seven crew missing, the second vessel fire reported off that stretch of coast this week. Lithuania's president is now proposing EU leaders discuss banning Russian grain exports that transit the Baltic Sea, while Fastmarkets has launched new price assessments for Russian wheat at Baltic ports, an overdue piece of transparency for a corridor that mostly trades in the dark.
GRAIN
Jordan issued a fresh tender to buy 120,000 tonnes of feed barley, part of the usual rhythm of Gulf restocking as winter approaches. In Saudi Arabia, KBR was selected to supply ammonia technology for a new fertiliser stock, part of the kingdom's slow build-out of domestic nitrogen capacity rather than straight urea imports.
Wire traffic
- Antofagasta's Q3 copper output rose, but its 2027 guidance fell flat and the shares sank on the outlook.
- Richemont and Signet are weighing joining a consortium bid for De Beers at about 1 billion USD.
- Russia's Novak has named a date for first Russia-to-US diesel shipments, worth watching with ULSD up 2.4% to 1,514 USD/t.