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Egypt is expected to take 1.5-1.7 million mt of US wheat this marketing year, July 1, 2018 to June 30, 2019 as Russian deep sea port 12.5% protein wheat becomes scarce. Around 800,000 mt is expected to come from the private market by the end of the marketing year: “At least three Panamax vessels are being loaded now,” a source said, while some new deals of 200,000 to 400,000 mt of wheat were reportedly negotiated for shipment to Egypt from the US Friday. The rest of US wheat imports is ...

Ukrainian grain exports from sea ports in the week of Jan. 12-18 rose to 634,000 tonnes from 544,000 tonnes a week earlier, the APK-Inform consultancy said. Wheat exports led the increase, it said. Wheat shipments rose by 30 percent to 151,000 tonnes, while corn exports fell by 6 percent to 402,000 tonnes. Ukraine sent its grain mostly to Netherlands, Egypt and Italy, it said. Ukraine harvested a record 70.1 million tonnes of grain this year and expects to export 47.2 million tonnes during the 2018/19 July-June season. Grain exports for ...

Chicago soybean futures lost ground on Tuesday, falling for the first time in four sessions on concerns over a lack of Chinese demand for U.S. supplies amid a trade war with Washington and as the world’s No. 2 economy slows. Corn and wheat futures ticked lower. Asian shares and U.S. stock futures slipped on Tuesday as pessimism about world growth drove investors away from risky assets, while sterling dithered as the latest plan for Brexit appeared to come and go with no progress. The most-active soybean contract on the Chicago ...

It is not just the stock market that is having a wobble — firms are asking if now is the right time to be investing in new capacity or raising production. 2018 was a stellar year for the U.S. jobs market, but recent figures suggest part of that may have been the sugar rush of the president’s tax breaks. That effect is beginning to wane now. Investors are looking at slowing growth in China and Europe, trade wars and a shaky U.S. housing market and asking: what does 2019 hold? ...

Tokyo Steel Manufacturing Co Ltd , Japan’s top electric-arc furnace steelmaker, on Monday said it will hold steel product prices steady in February because of a weaker overseas market. This is the second month the company kept prices unchanged for all of its steel products, including its main H-shaped beams. For February, prices for steel bars, including rebar, will remain at 69,000 yen ($629) a tonne while H-shaped beams will also stay at 89,000 yen ($812) a tonne. “We will keep prices steady as the overseas steel market remains relatively ...

Oil prices fell nearly 2 percent on Tuesday on signs that an economic slowdown in China is spreading, stoking concerns about global growth and fuel demand. The gloomy news from the world’s second-largest economy and top oil importer pulled down financial markets across Asia. International Brent oil futures were down $1.23, or 1.96 percent, at $61.51 a barrel by 1205 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate (WTI) crude futures were down $1 at $52.80. China reported the lowest annual economic growth in nearly 30 years on Monday and its state planner ...

The US economy has traditionally been a heavy importer of oil, making it unquestionably a fan of low oil prices. Meanwhile, the shale oil revolution has transformed the US oil industry, and driven net imports to almost zero. But, has that been enough to make America favor high oil prices, and to be an OPEC ally? In 1975, two years after the OPEC embargo, the US banned petroleum exports to ensure sufficient local supplies of the strategic, important commodity. At that time, net oil imports equaled six million barrels/day, a ...

Russia is committed to its pledges on oil output cuts, Energy Minister Alexander Novak said on Monday, after criticism from Saudi Arabia. Last week, Saudi Energy Minister Khalid al-Falih said Russia was cutting its oil production more slowly than expected. Novak also said he would meet his Saudi counterpart in Davos later this week if Falih attends the world economic forum in the Swiss resort. “It depends on his schedule,” Novak told reporters. Source: Reuters (Reporting by Alissa de Carbonnel; Writing by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Susan Fenton)

With natural gas demand growing faster than for any other fossil fuel, LNG futures may be finally taking off. Derivatives represented about 2 percent of global LNG production at the beginning of 2017 as an array of contracts around the world struggled to gain traction. But by the end of last year, volumes had grown to almost 23 percent, led by a burgeoning Intercontinental Exchange Inc. contract based on S&P Global Platts’ Japan-Korea Marker spot price assessments.   While volumes are a long way off established global energy benchmarks such ...

Greece approved two consortia to submit final bids for a 50.1 percent stake in its biggest oil refiner Hellenic Petroleum, its privatisations agency said. The consortia are: Glencore Energy with a unit of U.S.-based Carlyle Group; and Vitol Holding with Algeria-based Sonatrach. Glencore and Vitol had already been shortlisted last summer. Source: Reuters (Reporting by Angeliki Koutantou Editing by Karolina Tagaris)

Pessimism about global growth drove down world shares and commodity markets on Tuesday and left investors seeking refuge in the dollar, government bonds and gold. The International Monetary Fund’s warning of a darkening outlook on Monday after China’s confirmation of its slowest growth rate in nearly 30 years and amid more head-scratching over Brexit continued to weigh on the mood. European shares had followed Asia into the red <.STOXX> with disappointing earnings from Swiss bank UBS also adding extra gloom after Europe’s banking sector <.SX7E> saw nearly 30 percent wiped ...

China’s economy grew 6.4% year-over-year in the fourth quarter of 2018, confirming analyst expectations for the slowest expansion in a decade. What happens this year could reverberate through equity markets far away. What’s Happening Despite widespread distrust of Chinese economic statistics, few contest that the country’s expansion is slowing, buffeted by trade tensions with the U.S. and a campaign to crack down on a boom in lending at home. And after years of rapid growth, China’s economic heft is undeniable. On a purchasing-power parity basis, which adjusts for how much ...

The euro struggled near a three-week low on Tuesday as weak data and a cut in European growth forecast by the International Monetary Fund prompted investors to turn bearish on the single currency. Morale among German investors improved slightly in January, but their assessment of the economy’s current condition deteriorated to a four-year low, a survey showed on Tuesday, sending mixed signals for the growth outlook of Europe’s largest economy. That data comes on the heels of an overnight reduction in Europe’s growth forecasts by the IMF which trimmed its ...

Beijing and Moscow have rarely had more reasons to rue the dollar’s global dominance. Yet changing the status quo will be difficult, and recent efforts to do so have yielded little. The dollar isn’t only the primary reserve currency held by other central banks. It is also ubiquitous in trade and international capital markets, making it crucial to the stability of emerging economies. Last year a soaring dollar rattled the developing world by making dollar debt more expensive for foreign borrowers to service. The dollar’s primacy boosts overseas demand for ...

China’s economic growth rate in 2018 slipped to its lowest level in nearly three decades, raising concerns over whether Beijing has done enough to arrest the deepening slowdown, at a time when the external environment is turning hostile and a mountain of debt at home is restricting the scope for additional stimulus. The official growth rate of 6.6 per cent in 2018 – while a decent figure given the size of China’s economy and in line with the government’s target for growth of “about 6.5 per cent” for the year ...