Commodity Corner
Views on commodities and energy
The Devil is in the details
Numbers, or rather the lack of them, are the latest gripe of Argentina’s disgruntled farm sector.
Statistics published by the government for years have been disappearing since the Agriculture Secretariat ceded control of the country’s multibillion-dollar grains and beef trade to another state agency, the ONCCA, earlier this year.
Little by little, the government has stopped updating routine tables detailing weekly grains export commitments and purchases by soy crushers. Weekly corn and wheat sales, with details of buyer countries, have not been published since June.
Some new information has been posted in its place, but it smells like a conspiracy to grains exporters, meatpackers and farmers, whose relationship with the center-left government of President Cristina Fernandez seems irreparably damaged following this year’s messy conflict over soy taxes.
Commodities: Oil price forecasts still coming off
Hurricane Ike kept oil prices ahead Monday as the storm barrels toward southern Florida but the wider trend on crude prices is less clear. Credit Suisse cut its third quarter 2008 U.S. crude oil forecast to $120 per barrel and fourth quarter forecast to $110 per barrel.
Here are some of the stories Reuters is watching today in other commodities markets.
