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☆ Trafigura assesses Red Sea risks after tanker attacked by Houthis
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-28 | by ( ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

Commodities trader Trafigura said on Saturday it was assessing the security risks of further Red Sea voyages after firefighters put out a blaze on a tanker attacked by Yemen's Houthi group a day earlier. The Houthi attacks have primarily targeted container vessels moving through the Red Sea. A notable exception is QatarEnergy, the world's second largest exporter of liquefied natural gas, which earlier this month stopped sending tankers via the Red Sea, citing security concerns. The Marshall Islands-flagged Marlin Luanda issued a distress call on Friday and reported damage, U.S. Central Command said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. About eight hours after the Marlin Luanda incident, the U.S. military destroyed a Houthi anti-ship missile that was aimed into the Red Sea and ready to launch, Central Command said.

Persons: Trafigura, Yemen's, Trafigura's, Marlin, Carney, Ras Issa Organizations: Djibouti . Commodities, U.S . Navy, Marshall, U.S . Central Command, Indian Navy, British, Houthi, U.S, Central Command, Britain, U.S . Fifth Fleet, British Defence Ministry Locations: Djibouti, U.S, Trafigura, Aden, Gulf, Africa, Gaza, Visakhapatnam, Yemen, United States, Ras, Yemen's

☆ Oil spills and near misses: more ghost tankers ship sanctioned fuel
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-23 | by ( Jonathan Saul | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +9 min

REUTERS/Ronen ZvulunSummary Risk of accidents in focus as 'shadow' fleet growsStirs fears of oil spills, decades after Exxon ValdezHundreds of ships carry oil from sanctioned nationsMany ship certifiers and insurers have pulled servicesLONDON, March 23 (Reuters) - An oil tanker runs aground off eastern China, leaking fuel into the water. Many leading certification providers and engine makers that approve seaworthiness and safety have withdrawn their services from ships carrying oil from sanctioned Iran, Russia and Venezuela, as have a host of insurers, meaning there's less oversight of vessels carrying the flammable cargoes. Reuters was unable to independently verify the numbers regarding the size and growth of the shadow fleet. The U.S. Treasury didn't immediately respond to a request for comment on ships carrying sanctioned oil. SHIP-TO-SHIP TRANSFERSAround 774 tankers out of 2,296 in the overall global crude oil fleet are 15 years old or more, according to data provider VesselsValue.

☆ The world's top metals trader is stuck in another nickel-shipment snafu after getting bags of stones from a Dutch warehouse
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-21 | by ( Filip De Mott | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Trafigura discovered that it received bag of stones from a warehouse in Rotterdam instead of nickel. Last month, Trafigura disclosed an unrelated fraud on nickel shipments and faces a $577 million loss. Earlier, the Wall Street Journal reported that JPMorgan Chase was the owner of bags of stones at the warehouse. Stratton Metals, a metal trader in Europe, also reportedly got bags of stones instead of nickel. Meanwhile, Trafigura has said there's no connection between the bags of stones and a separate snafu related to nickel cargoes.

☆ LME finds 'irregularities' in several nickel bags at a warehouse
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-17 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

March 17 (Reuters) - The London Metal Exchange (LME) on Friday postponed the resumption of nickel trading during Asian hours by a week to March 27 after it found nickel that failed to meet contract specifications at an LME warehouse. The LME said it had cancelled nine nickel warrants - an ownership document for metals placed in an LME-approved warehouse - at one warehouse facility, without naming it. The LME said the non-conformant warrants represent 0.14% of live nickel stock in its warehouses. The 146-year-old LME said the issues with nickel related to bagged nickel briquettes, which were found to not have the correct weight. The exchange said it had no reason to believe that any other LME facility was affected, but still called on all warehouse operators to undertake inspections of warranted nickel.

☆ Metal tycoon sued over missing $577 million in nickel told cargo inspectors he'd had a heart attack, report says
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-28 | by ( Ryan Hogg | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

An Indian tycoon sued over missing nickel cargoes told inspectors he'd had a heart attack, per the FT.Trafigura alleges many of Prateek Gupta's shipments didn't contain any nickel and it faces a $577 million loss. Commodities trading giant Trafigura has sued Prateek Gupta and companies associated with him, including TMT Metals and UIL Malaysia. Trafigura's head nickel trader, Sokratis Oikonomou, arranged for a physical inspection of the cargoes shipped by Gupta's firms on November 9, the report said. Trafigura has said none of the Rotterdam containers had the the nickel previously agreed in orders, but contained carbon steel instead. Gupta was hit with a $625 million freezing order by a London court after Trafigura filed its fraud lawsuit.

Although commanding a weighting of just 0.936%, lower than any other industrial metal, lead is included in the Bloomberg Commodity Index (BCOM) for the first time this year. LME lead three-month price, stocks and spreadsSTOCKED OUTLME lead stocks fell by 54% to 25,150 tonnes over the course of last year. The distribution of LME warehouse stocks says a lot about the underlying stresses in the physical supply chain. China has emerged as a supplier of last resort to a stretched Western market. REBALANCINGThe lead market that has been trying to rebalance for two years and the return of Nyrstar's Port Pirie smelter in Australia after three months of maintenance should help.

☆ Copper supplies are dangerously low and can only cover less than 5 days of global demand, top commodities trader says
▼ + stars: | 2022-10-21 | by ( Brian Evans | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +2 min

Copper supply is dangerously low, according to top global commodities trader Trafigura. The firm's mineral and metals co-chief said current inventories can only cover 4.9 days of demand. That could shrink even further to just 2.7 days by the end of this year, said Kostas Bintas. For comparison, copper inventories are typically counted in weeks. Copper is currently trading at just below $7,400 per ounce, still 30% lower than the March peak of $10,000 per ton.

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