Oil slightly firmer ahead of OPEC+ supply plan
Oil prices were mostly stable on Thursday ahead of an OPEC+ meeting later in the day, with investors waiting to see what the producer group would do next on supply cuts while also monitoring geopolitical tension in the Middle East.
Brent crude futures rose 5 cents, or 0.07 percent, to $72.36 a barrel by 0730 GMT, while U.S. crude futures were at $68.60 a barrel, up 6 cents, or 0.09 percent.
Both benchmarks fell nearly 2 percent on Wednesday. A single bank sold a large volume of U.S. oil futures contracts in early afternoon trading on Wednesday, a person with direct knowledge of the matter said, pushing prices down.
World food programme’s troubles in Sudan : Report
Serious problems in the UN World Food Programme’s response to the Sudan crisis are hampering the organisation’s ability to alleviate hunger in the war-torn country and damaging its reputation with donors, according to a recent internal report seen by Reuters.
As the UN’s main food-aid distributor, the WFP is struggling to feed millions of people in the African country, which is suffering one of the world’s worst hunger crises. The report identifies a range of problems in the WFP’s Sudan response, including an inability to scale up its operations, missed funding opportunities and what it describes as “anti-fraud challenges”.
World requires needs urgent course correction for how we grow food
The world needs to urgently change the way food is grown and land is used in order to avoid irreparable harm to global food production capacity, according to a major new scientific report released Sunday.
Currently seven out of nine ‘planetary boundaries’ have been negatively impacted by unsustainable land use, mostly related to unsustainable agriculture, warns the report produced by the German-based Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) along with the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD).
Approximately 15 million km² of land area, or 10 percent of the world’s terrestrial space, is already severely degraded, as measured by the extent of deforestation, diminished food production capacity, and the disappearance of freshwater resources. And this degraded land area is expanding each year by about 1 million km², according to the report.
Grain from Ukraine initiative
The Minister of Agrarian Policy and Food of Ukraine, Vitaliy Koval, has said that the Grain from Ukraine Initiative is a symbol of Ukrainian solidarity with the world.
In this interview with Daily Sun on the sidelines of the third meeting of the Grain from Ukraine Initiative within the framework of the Food Security Summit in Kyiv, the Ukrainian capital, Koval disclosed that through the initiative, over 280 thousand tonnes of agricultural products which included wheat and wheat flour, corn, peas and oil, have been shipped to 12 countries in Africa and Asia.
He also said that looking into the future, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine has proposed to expand the list of recipient countries to include Latin American and Caribbean countries, as well as countries in the Middle East and Africa, even as the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) is also interested in including Lebanon among the recipients of the humanitarian aid.
Two thirds of world’s natural resources are extracted where press freedom is
Most of the world’s natural resources – fossil fuels, minerals and forest resources – come from countries where investigating their extraction and its environmental and social impacts is difficult, if not impossible. This is what Reporters Without Borders (RSF) found by looking at natural resource exploitation data in the light of its Press Freedom Index. RSF urges the international community to combat the obstacles to press freedom in these countries and ensure better protection for journalists so that they can cover the environmental challenges linked to extraction.
Iron ore increases as firmer steel output offsets soft China data
Prices of iron ore futures edged higher for the third straight session on Wednesday, as stronger steel production outweighed a raft of weaker economic data in top consumer China.
The most-traded January iron ore contract on China’s Dalian Commodity Exchange (DCE) was up 0.38 percent at 786.5 yuan ($108.40) a metric ton, as of 0233 GMT. The benchmark December iron ore on the Singapore Exchange was 0.48 percent higher at $103.05 a ton.
“Iron ore markets again marked time above $100 with the increase in Chinese steel production supporting prices,” Westpac analysts said in a note.
China’s steel output remains well above average rates for this time of year, with production over the last three weeks up 9.5 percent versus the average for the same period in the last three years, Westpac said, citing data from the China Iron and Steel Association.
China is both the world’s top consumer and producer of the metal.
Still, the country’s industrial profits fell again in October.
Significant growth in coal production
Coal production and dispatch from captive and commercial mines has shown remarkable growth as compared to the previous year says a press release by the Ministry of coal, the government of India.
As of November 30, 2024 total coal production from captive and commercial mines between April 1st 2024 to November 30th 2024, stands at 112.65 MT, marking an impressive growth of 34.7 percent from 83.60 MT in the same period last year.
In November 2024 alone, the total coal production from these mines was 16.743 MT, with a daily average production of 0.558 MT, which is an increase of 40.9 percent compared to the daily average of 0.396 MT in November 2023.
The dispatch from captive and commercial mines has also seen remarkable growth. As of November 30, 2024, the total dispatch from captive and commercial mines between April 1 and November 30, 2024 reached 119.62 MT, an increase of 33.9 percent from 89.32 MT in the same period last year.