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New transportation ethos overcoming city dwellers

Not interested in the humdrum appeal of driving the same car everyday, more city dwellers revel in the ability to be practical in a Honda Civic one day, conquer the road in a Ford Escape SUV the next and end the week sporting around in a Mini Cooper Convertible. How? Through car sharing. 
    
Gas price spikes and a [...]

China’s soybean appetite key to CBOT grain prices

China’s seemingly unquenchable desire for soybeans coupled with a smaller South American soy crop than a year ago keeps traders focused on Chicago soy markets, asking: how high could they go? 
Chicago Board of Trade soybean futures rallied to a six-month top of $10.73 on Friday, surpassing its 200-day moving average, before profit-taking set in. Soy [...]

Toxic asset datapoint of the day, Lehman edition

We knew there was a lot of nuclear waste on Lehman’s balance sheet. But we didn’t know that was literally true:

Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. is sitting on enough uranium cake to make a nuclear bomb as it waits for prices of the commodity to rebound, according to traders and nuclear experts.

At least uranium can in [...]

U.S. weather moving into the spotlight for grains trade

A cool, wet spring across the heart of the U.S. crop belt is making Chicago Board of Trade grain traders nervous about the upcoming planting season, keeping them focused on the latest weather outlook.
    
Farmers are already behind on fieldwork after rains last autumn prevented them from applying fertilizer to intended corn fields, usually a favorite [...]

Will Russia cut aluminum production after winter thaw?

On Alcoa’s quarterly conference call this week, CEO Klaus Kleinfeld pointed out that there is currently a 1.4 million tonne aluminum surplus in the world outside of China, and therefore to expect more production to come off line in coming months above the already-announced 1.6 million tonnes of production that has yet to be implemented.

Source: [...]

“Tinny” signs of recovery

One of the most significant comments about the world economy this week may have come from Klaus Kleinfeld, the chief executive officier and president of Alcoa, America’s largest aluminium producer. Amid the reporting of  pretty horrible earnings  — a $497 million net loss versus a year-earlier gain of $303 million — Kleinfeld said things may not [...]

Mother Nature back in the game

Mother Nature is making her seasonal appearance in Chicago Board of Trade markets and will be one of the big price drivers this week for grains. 
    
Planting time for corn is approaching in the Midwest and winter wheat, dormant since autumn, is reviving for a sprint to early summer maturity. But a freeze is forecast for [...]

What a difference a year makes – Valero embraces corn ethanol

At last year’s American Petroleum Institute conference, Bill Klesse, CEO of leading U.S. oil refiner Valero, slammed federal policymakers who push subsidies and mandates for production of ethanol, saying that using corn to make it would make food so expensive it would cause more misery than global warming.

“All of these programs are just a huge transfer of wealth [...]

Floating a balloon, adding to global warming?

Democrats floated big plans to tackle climate change proposals in the U.S. Congress this week but realistically there will be much more hot air — both from industry and politicians — before this bill is turned into law.
 
The draft legislation, running hundreds of pages, will now be considered by the House Energy and Commerce Committee in [...]

South American LNG Terminals

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The above map shows South America’s LNG import terminals ahead of the coming Southern Hemisphere winter, including Chile’s Quintero terminal, which is expected online in June. (Click on individual terminals for details)

South America’s nascent import capacity will add a new dynamic to the Atlantic Basin market, drawing LNG counter-seasonally when demand [...]

Arclights on U.S. plantings data

By K.T. Arasu 
Investors will zero in this week on arguably the most important crop report of the year when the U.S. government forecasts how much corn and soybeans farmers will sow this spring across the country. 
   
The report is expected to project more plantings of soy and less of corn than in 2008, based on the [...]

A food czar could bring sexy back to agriculture

It seems if you got a problem in Washington today, you need a Czar to take care of it. And now some powerful U.S. senators believe the agriculture sector should get one to sharpen efforts to feed the world’s poor.
    
Former Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman told lawmakers on Tuesday that too often agriculture takes a back [...]