Commodities Focus

Sustainability is currently a key theme in the world of commodities. Recycled plastics and recycled metals have garnered considerable attention given how widely plastics and metals are used in downstream consumer products including food packaging and electronics.

S&P Global Platts market experts Samuel Chin, Miranda Zhang, and Eric Su explore the differences and similarities of these materials and their markets, and offer insights on how both commodities fit into the bigger picture of sustainability in Asia.

Container shipping markets have been tagged as red hot because base box rates have more than quintupled since the market began its steep hike north in May 2020 amid the pandemic's operational and logistical constraints.

But because exorbitantly high base rates are no longer the ticket to getting a box on a ship or a guarantee of timely delivery, the market has been shaped by measures such as carriers' premium services and surcharges that can more than double base rates.

S&P Global Platts Americas shipping senior managing editor Barbara Troner talks to Platts global container market experts Parisha Tyagi in Gurgaon, George Griffiths in London and David Lademan in Houston about how unusual market fundamentals make for unorthodox market behavior on all sides of the equation.

Jonty Rushforth, Senior Director of Markets and Energy Transition, and Paula VanLaningham, Platts Global Head of Carbon, talk about the devastating wildfires sweeping across the globe and the challenges facing Nature-Based Carbon Credits as the market reckons with Offset Permanence in the face of rising global temperatures.

For more discussions on all topics related to the Energy Transition, make sure to tune in to the Platts Future Energy podcast on Spotify, Apple Podcasts and our website.

Plastic usage and recycling has become a hot-button topic recently, as the push for sustainable products is forefront in manufacturing goals.

Aluminum has long been touted the beverage package of choice because of the perceived sustainability it offers, but are the two closer in the race for sustainability than we think?

We take a closer look at the economic and environmental sustainability of recycling a can versus recycling a plastic bottle, and what it means for the industry at large.

S&P Global Platts senior natural gas writer Harry Weber, S&P Global Market Intelligence senior midstream finance reporter Allison Good and Platts managing editor for Americas LNG Luke Stobbart discuss current trends in the North American midstream sector as operators of gas pipelines and LNG export terminals prepare to release financial results for the second quarter of 2021.

Investors will be watching for signs that the pickup in commercial activity in recent months is sufficient to support new infrastructure growth opportunities, as ESG initiatives command a lot of attention across the industry.

US refineries have ramped up production in the second quarter as domestic demand for gasoline and diesel grows and global energy markets begin to adjust back to pre-pandemic demand and production levels.

Increasing US Gulf Coast refinery utilization has had an adverse impact to clean and dirty tanker freight in the Americas, however, leaving shipowner earnings at less-than-favorable levels. S&P Global Platts tanker freight editors Catherine Wood, Nicole Baquerizo and Marieke Alsguth, along with senior oil writer Janet McGurty, discuss the "push and pull" of the US refinery landscape and how it's playing out among various tanker freight segments in the Americas.

In this episode of the S&P Global Platts Agriculture Focus podcast, the Platts EMEA Agriculture team discusses how the prices of different agricultural commodities, from wheat, corn and rice, to veg oils, sugar and biodiesel, have fared during the coronavirus pandemic and whether we can expect any knock-on effects in the coming months.

Cheniere, the biggest exporter of LNG in the US, is working to secure sufficient buyer interest for a proposed mid-scale expansion at its Corpus Christi liquefaction facility in Texas. It is also pursuing initiatives to reduce its carbon footprint at Corpus Christi and at its Sabine Pass export terminal in Louisiana, and give customers more information about the life-cycle emissions of its cargoes.

S&P Global Platts senior natural gas writer Harry Weber is joined by Anatol Feygin, Cheniere Energy's chief commercial officer, for a discussion about current trends in the global LNG market, with a special emphasis on North America and the energy transition.

Raw feed materials have seen unprecedented growth in prices, putting a dent in the Asian feedmakers' margins. In this podcast, S&P Global Platts editors Elizabeth Thang, Takmila Shahid, and Ivy Li examine factors impacting the buying patterns of Asian customers, including supply and demand fundamentals, the impact of weather conditions on prices, as well as the current hog farm situation in China.

Flows of naphtha from the US Gulf Coast to Asia have reached record highs in May and June, drawn by fresh demand from Asia's steam crackers returning from seasonal maintenance and new units coming online over the second half of June.

Though higher refining rates and dampened demand for gasoline in the US have opened wide this normally delicate naphtha arbitrage, tanker owners operating in the Americas have shown resistance to making the trans-Pacific voyage, citing low daily earnings and weak freight levels in both the Americas and Asia Medium Range tanker markets as deterrents for repositioning their fleets.

Marieke Alsguth, S&P Global Platts clean tanker editor, sits down with Houston naphtha editor MK Bower and Singapore naphtha editor Wanda Wang to discuss the factors that opened the floodgates for naphtha barrels to move from the USGC to Asia, and how the resurgence of petroleum product demand as countries emerge from pandemic-related lockdowns could affect activity on the trans-Pacific trade flow.