The United States on Friday imposed additional sanctions related to the price cap on Russian oil, targeting three entities and three oil tankers as Washington seeks to close loopholes in the mechanism designed to punish Moscow for its war in Ukraine. The U.S. Treasury Department accused those targeted on Friday of using Western maritime services such as transportation, insurance, and financing while carrying Russian crude oil above the $60-per-barrel price cap. The Group of Seven rich countries, the European Union and Australia imposed the $60-per-barrel cap last December on seaborne ...

Malaysian palm oil futures posted a second weekly loss onFriday, underpinned by poor demand and weakness in Dalian vegetable oils. The benchmark palm oil contract FCPOc3 for February delivery on the Bursa Malaysia Derivatives Exchange slid 24 ringgit, or 0.62%, to 3,871 ringgit ($828.73) at closing. The contract declined 0.49% this week. It recorded a 5.87% rise for November, reversing a two-month decline. Palm oil demand from biodiesel players continued to be virtually non-existent, said Paramalingam Supramaniam, director at Selangor-based brokerage Pelindung Bestari. “Market players expressed uncertainty regarding when margins ...

Indian refiners have started to snap up crude shipments from Venezuela barely weeks after the easing of sanctions, opening up a new battleground for Chinese independent refiners who have been the most active buyers of the feedstock from the South American supplier in recent years. “Some Venezuelan crude is now getting loaded and is on its way to India. With Venezuelan crude entering the market, it provides an opportunity for Indian refiners to seize the moment and enhance their sour crude refining margins, thereby boosting overall gross refining margins,” said ...

India’s Russian oil imports rebounded in November after several plants came back online from planned maintenance and as fuel consumption rose during the Diwali festive season, preliminary data from ship-tracking firms Kpler and Vortexa showed. The world’s third-biggest importer and consumer of oil has boosted purchases of Russian oil sold at a discount after imports from Russia were shunned by some Western countries following its invasion of Ukraine last year. Data from Kpler and Vortexa showed a 9% and 5% rise in India’s monthly intake of Russian oil in November ...

French cereal sowings had again made little progress last week while crop ratings extended their fall, farm office FranceAgriMer data showed on Friday, in a sign that heavy rainfall since last month has taken a toll on crops. Farmers had sown 82% of the expected soft wheat area for next year’s harvest in the European Union’s largest grower by Nov. 27, FranceAgriMer said in a crop report. That was up from 74% last week, but well behind the 99% sown by the same stage last year and a five-year average ...

Dalian iron ore futures were set for their first weekly loss in seven as Beijing continued to intervene in the market to regulate prices, though the contract gained on Friday due to upbeat factory data. The most-traded January iron ore on China’s Dalian Commodity Exchange was up 2% at 975.5 yuan ($136.55) per metric ton at closing. This week, Dalian iron ore prices lost 0.12%. On the Singapore Exchange, the benchmark January iron ore was 0.9% higher at $129.58 a metric ton. The benchmark contract declined 2.1% this week, its ...

Ukraine, a major global grain producer, has harvested almost 77 million metric tons of grain and oilseeds from the new 2023 harvest so far, the agriculture ministry said on Friday. The ministry gave no comparative data. It said 56.3 million tons of grain and 20.7 million tons of oilseeds had been threshed. The harvest ends late this year, depending on the weather. The volume included 22.5 million tons of wheat, 5.9 million tons of barley, 399,500 tons of peas, 26.8 million tons of corn and smaller contributions from other cereals. ...

Russian oil product exports from the Black Sea port of Tuapse in December are set to rise by 28.9% month on month to 1.469 million metric tons from 1.103 million scheduled for November, two traders said on Friday. Meanwhile, actual oil product loadings via the port of Tuapse fell in November by 43% from the planned level to 630,000 metric tons due to stormy weather. Source: Reuters (Reporting by Reuters; editing by Susan Fenton)

Miner Freeport-McMoRan FCX.N reached agreement on Friday with Chinese smelter Jiangxi Copper 600362.SS for 2024 copper concentrate treatment and refining charges at $80 a metric ton and 8 cents per pound, a source said. The agreed charges are the same as reached by Chilean miner Antofagasta ANTO.L and Chinese smelters earlier on Friday and so will be considered the benchmark charges for 2024 copper concentrate treatment and refining. Source: Reuters (Reporting by Mai Nguyen in Hanoi; Editing by Susan Fenton)

Indian mills have produced 4.32 million metric tons of sugar since the current season began on Oct. 1, down 10.7% year on year, as mills in two key states started operations later than usual, a leading trade body said on Friday. Lower sugar production could lead the world’s second-largest producer to refrain from allocating export quotas and support global prices SBc1, LSUc1 that are trading near multi-year highs. The start of sugar cane crushing in the western state of Maharashtra and neighbouring Karnataka was delayed to Nov. 1 because of ...

A global aluminium producer has offered Japanese buyers a premium of $95 per metric ton for January-March primary metal shipments, down 2% from the current quarter, three sources directly involved in quarterly pricing talks said. Japan is Asia’s biggest importer of the metal and the premiums for primary metal shipments it agrees to pay each quarter over the London Metal Exchange (LME) cash price CMAL0 set the benchmark for the region. For the October-December quarter, Japanese buyers agreed to pay a premium of $97 per ton PREM-ALUM-JP, down 24% from ...

Oil loadings from Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiisk were suspended again as a storm resumed, two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Friday. Russia’s Black Sea Novorossiisk port and CPC terminal resumed oil loadings after a severe storm on Thursday. The Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC) continued oil loadings at its Black Sea terminal despite bad weather as of Friday afternoon, the sources added. Severe storms in the Black Sea region since last Friday have disrupted up to 2 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil exports from ...

Russia’s December exports of ultra low-sulphur diesel (ULSD) from the Baltic Sea port of Primorsk are set to rise by 21% month-on-month to a record 2.0 million metric tons, from 1.6 million tons scheduled for November, three traders said. Diesel exports are increasing after lifting a temporary ban on exports of summer diesel, the traders added on Friday. Source: Reuters (Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Sharon Singleton)

French cereal sowings had again made little progress last week while crop ratings extended their fall, farm office FranceAgriMer data showed on Friday, in a sign that heavy rainfall since last month has taken a toll on crops. Farmers had sown 82% of the expected soft wheat area for next year’s harvest in the European Union’s largest grower by Nov. 27, FranceAgriMer said in a crop report. That was up from 74% last week, but well behind the 99% sown by the same stage last year and a five-year average ...

Copper prices rose to a three-month high on Friday, on track for the third week of consecutive growth, due to better-than-expected data from top consumer China, tighter supply, a decline of exchange inventories and a softer dollar. Three-month copper on the London Metal Exchange rose 0.9% to $8,543.5 per metric ton by 1059 GMT after touching $8,564, its highest since Sept. 1, and breaking through the resistance coming from the 200-day moving average at $8,445. The private Caixin survey showed that China’s factory activity unexpectedly expanded in November amid rising ...