The Barrel: The last place the story shows up
9 July 2026 When the US–Iran ceasefire collapsed in the Strait of Hormuz this week, the headlines went straight to price. Brent ticked up, then wobbled either way, and most commentary moved on. But for the companies that actually move oil, gas and chemicals through that water, the price is not the problem. The problem is everything sitting underneath it. Hormuz carries roughly a fifth of the world’s seaborne oil and LNG. That makes route reliability a commercial contract in its own right, and it is precisely the thing a trader cannot hedge. You can hedge crude. You cannot hedge a captain who refuses to enter a severe-risk zone, an insurer who rewrites a war-risk exclusion overnight, or a payment rail that quietly narrows while your cargo is still mid-voyage. That last point is the one keeping people up. A US general licence opened a legal corridor for Iranian oil on 21 June. Within roughly a fortnight it was revoked and replaced with a wind-down order. Legal permission, it turns out, is not the same as bankable confidence, and each transaction now carries a lifecycle risk that is far harder to price than the commodity itself. This is why so many commodities businesses are in a genuine tailspin right now. The instinct is to watch the screen. But the screen is a lagging indicator. A vessel that turns back, an insurer that hesitates, a bank that declines a settlement, none of it registers immediately as a shortage. It registers as friction. Friction compounds quietly, and by the time it reaches the price, the decision you needed to make was already late. The firms that come through this well will not be the ones with the best price call. They will be the ones who treated the route, the licence and the counterparty as three separate clocks, and started tracking all three before the market did. Strategy in this environment is not prediction. It is knowing which questions to ask, and asking them early. Gapuma Group | Trading commodities and speciality chemicals across international markets, with a clear read on the ground beneath the price.
The relief is real… The certainty is not
1st July 2026 For four months, the price of oil has told the story of a war few people expected and fewer still know how to end. Now, as June closes, that story appears to be turning: Brent has slipped to around $73 a barrel, its steepest monthly fall since the pandemic and its worst quarter in six years. Petrol stations, freight desks and finance directors across the trading world are, for the first time since February, allowed to exhale. But exhaling is not the same as trusting what comes next. The rally in supply behind this fall in price is genuine enough. Tankers are moving through the Strait of Hormuz again, sanction waivers have loosened Iranian barrels back into a starved market, and the diplomatic language out of Washington and Tehran has, briefly, softened. Yet scratch beneath the relief and the foundations look considerably less solid than the headline number suggests. The current arrangement holding the strait open is not a settlement; it is a temporary courtesy, with Iran having agreed to forgo transit fees for just sixty days and reserving the right to reinstate them the moment that window closes. A ceasefire with an expiry date is not peace. It is an interval. It is worth asking, too, who is actually behind the falling price, because the answer is not simply optimism. Much of this year’s most consistent buying came from trend-following hedge funds, the quiet, algorithm-driven money that piled into long oil positions as the conflict escalated in spring. That money is now heading for the exit, not because the war is over, but because the trade has stopped trending. What looks like the market voting for peace is, in no small part, funds voting to bank their profits before the next headline turns against them. This is a market that has grown fluent in front-running its own volatility. Even regulators have taken notice: several unusually well-timed bets against oil, placed in the minutes before key American statements on Iran this year, are now the subject of scrutiny. Ask a commodities desk how confident it feels and the honesty is telling. Callum Macpherson, head of commodities at Investec, described the situation bluntly as ultimately unsustainable, adding that markets are simply finding ways to muddle through, because the ordinary business of buying cargoes and hedging exposure cannot pause for a war to make up its mind. That, in a sentence, is the position every trading, logistics and distribution business now finds itself in. So can this easing be relied upon as the basis for forward strategy? Not yet, and arguably not for some time. A lower oil price today buys breathing room, not certainty. Freight contracts, insurance premiums and supplier terms still need to be built for a strait that could tighten again with a single statement out of Washington or Tehran. The prudent response is not to chase the rally down, but to hedge as though the ceasefire is what it has repeatedly proven itself to be this year: fragile, reversible and provisional. The deal may hold. History this year suggests we should not assume it will.
Gapuma Ghana Limited at WAMPEX 2026
8 June 2026 Last week we joined West Africa’s mining and power community in Accra for WAMPEX 2026, and we did so in force. WAMPEX – the West African Mining & Power Exhibition – is the region’s largest and longest-running event of its kind, running for over three decades. This year’s 19th edition, held from 3 to 5 June at the La Palm Royal Beach Hotel, brought together more than 6,000 mining professionals and over 250 exhibitors from 20 countries, all under the theme: “How Can Responsible Mining and Power Accelerate West Africa’s Sustainable Development?” It matters because West Africa is now central to the global mineral conversation – gold, bauxite, iron ore, manganese and lithium among them – and WAMPEX compresses months of sourcing, supplier discovery and high-level networking into three focused days. For a supply and trading partner like Gapuma, that is the room to be in. We were proud to send a strong delegation from across the Gapuma Group, including: Kishor Ubrani – Managing Director, Gapuma Ghana Limited Shiko Ghosh – CEO, Gapuma Ghana Limited Viveck Dutt Obert Chukwature Dheeren Panjwani Raj Thakkar – Procurement Consultant, Gapuma Group Ash Unadkat – Quality Manager, Gapuma Group Thank you to the organisers, the Ghana Chamber of Mines and everyone who stopped by our stand. Here’s to the partnerships that move the sector forward.
Biofuels: Where Policy Writes the Market
5 June 2026 A report by Transport & Environment (T&E), the Brussels-based clean transport campaign group, featured this week in Le Monde, projects that global biofuel demand could rise by 30% in 2026 and as much as 70% by 2030, well above earlier forecasts of 40%. The drivers are familiar to anyone watching energy markets closely. Amid instability in the Middle East and rising fossil fuel prices, countries with strong agricultural sectors are lifting their blending mandates. Indonesia is raising the palm oil content of its biodiesel to 50% from July; India, Malaysia, Brazil and the United States have all revised their targets upward. It is a moment that rewards a steady hand and genuine market literacy. As Gapuma’s own biofuels trader Charles Percheron told Le Monde: “It’s a market that wouldn’t exist without political will. Regulations can stimulate demand, but they can also curb it.” This is a market built on political will, then, where regulation can accelerate demand just as readily as it can restrain it. Reading those signals – anticipating where mandates move next, and pricing the second-generation feedstocks that may follow – is precisely the kind of judgement that defines good trading. That a national newspaper of record turned to Gapuma for that read says something about where the firm now sits in the conversation. We’re proud to see our people’s instinct and expertise recognised on the international stage. Read the full piece (In French) here: https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2026/06/04/la-ruee-vers-les-agrocarburants-un-risque-pour-la-securite-alimentaire-mondiale_6696904_3234.html
🛢️ GAPUMA GROUP | MARKET INTELLIGENCE | 20 MAY 2026
Hormuz, Beijing and Moscow: The Geopolitics of Oil Are Being Rewritten in Real Time The movement of two Chinese supertankers through the Strait of Hormuz today – the Yuan Gui Yang and Ocean Lily, carrying approximately 4 million barrels of crude after waiting in the Gulf for more than two months – has sent an immediate and unmistakeable signal to commodity markets. Brent crude fell to as low as $110.16 a barrel on the news. This is not merely a shipping story. It is a geopolitical statement. The vessels’ passage comes as President Trump and President Xi concluded a two-day summit in Beijing, with a White House official describing the talks as “good.” US Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC that China would work behind the scenes to help reopen the strait, noting that Beijing has “a much bigger interest in reopening the strait than the US does.” Beijing, characteristically, said nothing publicly about Hormuz – Chinese state media reported only that the leaders “exchanged views on major international and regional issues, such as the Middle East situation.” Silence, in diplomacy, is often the loudest language. Iran has reportedly sought to implement a toll system for vessels crossing Hormuz – a brazen assertion of sovereign authority over an international waterway that carries roughly a fifth of the world’s oil supply. That Chinese-flagged supertankers are now moving freely while broader restrictions remain in place is a pointed reminder of where true leverage lies. Meanwhile, closer to home, Prime Minister Keir Starmer has authorised the import of Russian-refined diesel and jet fuel into the UK indefinitely, alongside a temporary licence permitting the maritime transport of Russian LNG from the Sakhalin-2 and Yamal terminals. The government frames it as pragmatism. Treasury Minister Dan Tomlinson told Sky News the government was “acting pragmatically to insulate British citizens from the economic fallout of the Middle East conflict.” Critics – not least opposition leader Kemi Badenoch – see it differently: as analysts have noted, from Moscow’s perspective, it demonstrates that Western countries are “not that committed to a sanctions regime” when their own consumers feel the pinch. The broader picture is stark. Global oil supply has declined by 12.8 mb/d in total since February, with output from Gulf countries affected by the Strait’s closure running 14.4 mb/d below pre-war levels. The IEA projects a decline of 3.9 mb/d on average across 2026, assuming flows gradually resume from June. The United Nations has already cut its global growth forecast to 2.5% this year, against an estimated 3% last year, citing higher energy costs and weaker trade. For commodities and futures desks, the key questions now are whether today’s tanker movements represent a genuine reopening or a bilateral Chinese carve-out – and whether the gap between the two matters less than markets think. Wood Mackenzie has estimated Brent could approach $200 a barrel if the Strait remains largely shut until the end of the year. The downside scenario, by contrast, assumes a rapid diplomatic resolution that supply chains are ill-prepared to absorb smoothly. At Gapuma Group, we are watching these developments closely across energy, commodities and futures markets. The rules of the game are changing – and the players setting them are not all where they used to be. For market intelligence, trading insights and strategic analysis, connect with the Gapuma Group team.
Gapuma exhibiting at WAMPEX 2026
19 May 2026 West Africa’s largest mining industry gathering takes place from 3rd to 5th June at the La Palm Royal Beach Hotel in Accra – and you will find us on the show floor. Gapuma is a premier provider of sourcing, procurement and logistics for a wide range of chemicals, solvents and other commodities, with products integral to leading industry sectors globally. In the extractives sector, that means supplying a comprehensive range of chemicals for ore processing and waste treatment, backed by strategically positioned warehouses and an efficient supply chain infrastructure to ensure timely delivery and uninterrupted production. Through our recent partnership with Servaco PPS Limited – one of West Africa’s foremost industrial and mining supply companies – we have deepened our operational roots in Ghana and across the region. Our stand at WAMPEX gives us the opportunity to build on that momentum, meeting clients, forging new partnerships and showcasing what Gapuma Ghana can deliver. Manning the stand will be Obert V J Chikwature, Bernice Boahene and Moses Gadabor. Joining them on one of the days will be Vaibhav Raj Thakkar (Senior Purchasing Manager) and Ash Unadkat (Quality and Compliance Manager) from our London office. WAMPEX brings together over 6,000 mining professionals from more than 25 countries – come and find us there. 📍 La Palm Royal Beach Hotel, Accra 📅 3rd – 5th June 2026
GLB Building Lubricants Partnerships at WAAS 2026
14 May 2026 This week, Thompson Longe, Akash Suhanda, led by Prakash Ramchandani – Managing Director of GLB Chemical Services Limited, Gapuma’s Nigerian subsidiary – attended the 2026 West Africa Automotive Show (WAAS), a three-day exhibition held in Lagos. Africa’s largest automotive aftermarket trade show, WAAS is organised by BtoB Events and held at the Landmark Centre. More than 350 exhibitors took part, with over 6,000 visitors expected from across West Africa. The show brought together importers, distributors and manufacturers showcasing products across auto parts, lubricants, tyres, batteries, heavy machinery, and mobility solutions. It has evolved into a strategic business platform for the region’s automotive sector, with networking opportunities described as unique – distributors, importers and suppliers all under one roof. Our team used the occasion to meet both overseas and local lubricants manufacturers, advancing conversations around Chevron Oronite and Chevron Base Oil business and strengthening existing relationships. Attendees included pre-vetted importers and distributors from across the region, spanning Ghana, Côte d’Ivoire, Benin, Togo, Senegal, Cameroon and beyond. Topics on the table included opportunities in local manufacturing, spare parts distribution, lubricants and mobility solutions across West Africa. A conference running alongside the exhibition featured over 50 experts sharing insights on technology, policy and strategy. Nigeria remains a market of enormous significance. It is Africa’s largest importer of automotive spare parts, bringing in over $5 billion each year. Events like WAAS are where relationships are built and business gets done. Great to be part of it. 🤝
Gapuma’s Raj Thakkar heads to Cologne for Chemspec Europe
5th May 2026 Gapuma Group’s Raj Thakkar will be at Chemspec Europe 2026 at Koelnmesse, Cologne, on 6-7 May – one of the chemical industry’s most valuable annual gatherings. The event serves as a cross-sector sourcing hub for fine and speciality chemicals, bringing together producers, buyers, and technical experts from across pharmaceuticals, agrochemicals, speciality materials, coatings, personal care, electronics, energy, and many other industries. With over 400 global suppliers on the exhibition floor, it is precisely the kind of concentrated, high-quality environment where meaningful business relationships are forged, and supply chains are sharpened. During his visit, Raj will be strengthening ties with Gapuma’s existing partners whilst exploring new supplier opportunities – the twin pillars of any serious procurement strategy. Face-to-face engagement remains as valuable as ever in a sector navigating one of the fastest-changing markets the industry has known. If you would like to arrange a meeting with Raj at Chemspec or simply open a conversation about what Gapuma can offer, contact him directly at raj@gapuma.com.
Final day of ChinaPlas 2026 in Shanghai — and what an exceptional week it’s been
24 April 2026 A hugely successful event for Gapuma Group Limited. Our team has made extensive new connections, strengthened existing relationships, and laid the foundations for long-term partnerships across the global plastics and rubber industry. Just as importantly, we’ve seen first-hand the innovation, expertise, and forward thinking shaping the future of our sector — a powerful reminder of the pace and potential of this market. Thank you to everyone who took the time to meet with Russell Brill, Mihael Nahmias and Kishor Ubrani (Gapuma, Ghana). We look forward to continuing the conversations.
Gapuma at ChinaPlas 2026 – See You in Shanghai
16 April 2026 We are delighted to announce that Gapuma will be represented at ChinaPlas 2026 in Shanghai next week (21-24 April), where our Purchasing Director, Russell Brill, and Head of Polymers, Mihael Nahmias, will be in attendance. ChinaPlas is one of the most significant events in the global plastics and rubber industry calendar – a unique opportunity to connect with the brightest minds in the business, explore the latest innovations shaping our industry, and strengthen the relationships that drive it forward. For those of us who believe in the power of face-to-face dialogue, there is truly no substitute. Gapuma’s presence at events such as this reflects our enduring commitment to the industry we serve – a commitment to staying at the forefront of market developments, fostering long-term partnerships, and delivering the very best for our customers and suppliers across the globe. If you or your colleagues are also attending ChinaPlas this year, we would love to connect. Please do reach out to Russell or Mihael directly – we look forward to seeing you in Shanghai.
The 25-Year Gamble: Who Really Wins When Corporations Build the Roads?
Rates Waived, Questions Raised By: Shahab Mossavat 18 March 2026 A £4bn gigafactory. A 25-year business rates waiver. A council that says there is nothing to worry about. The announcement that Agratas – Tata Group’s battery business, building the UK’s biggest EV gigafactory near Bridgwater in Somerset – will fund £150m of local infrastructure improvements in lieu of paying business rates for a quarter of a century is being presented as a clean swap. Somerset Council borrows nothing. Agratas builds the roads. Everyone wins. But is it really that simple? The core question is one that economic development professionals should be asking far more loudly: does a single upfront corporate investment deliver better long-term value for a local economy than a sustained, predictable stream of tax revenue? And if the answer to that is genuinely uncertain – which it is – how can anyone responsibly sign off a 25-year calculation? Business rates, for all their much-criticised rigidity, are flexible in one crucial respect: they respond to revaluations. A thriving facility pays more as its rateable value rises. Rates revenue compounds with economic success. A fixed £150m infrastructure deal, agreed today, does not. Consider the variables that no one can reliably model over 25 years: inflation, interest rates, the pace of EV adoption, Tata Group’s strategic priorities, the shifting competitive landscape for battery manufacturing, the ongoing government review of the entire business rates system. The Transforming Business Rates interim report, published as recently as September 2025, acknowledged that the system itself is under fundamental redesign. Somerset is locking in a deal built on a framework that may look very different by 2030. Council leader Bill Revans says the deal eliminates a “small amount of risk” by removing the council’s exposure to interest rate movements on a loan. That is true, as far as it goes. But it substitutes one risk for several others: the risk that £150m of roads and training provision proves inadequate as the factory scales; the risk that Agratas’s needs evolve in ways Somerset’s infrastructure cannot accommodate; the risk – and this is the one rarely discussed openly – that a corporation’s priorities change. The Government’s own infrastructure analysis is instructive here. Large upfront costs deliver benefits that can take decades to materialise – and can just as easily fail to materialise at all. Japan spent trillions on prestige infrastructure and built bridges to nowhere. Spain constructed airports that saw no planes. The presence of steel and tarmac does not guarantee the economic activity that was supposed to justify it. None of this is to say the Agratas deal is wrong. A £4bn factory, up to 4,000 jobs, and an anchor role in the UK’s EV supply chain is a transformative prize for Somerset. The council may well have made the right call. But “the right call” and “a rigorously tested 25-year financial model” are not the same thing, and the distinction matters. As more corporations – often with the blessing of enterprise zone designations – look to substitute upfront infrastructure investment for ongoing tax obligations, local authorities need independent analytical frameworks to evaluate these deals properly. The asymmetry of information and negotiating power between a global conglomerate and a county council is considerable. The question we should all be asking is not whether Agratas is a good corporate citizen – by all accounts it is working hard to embed itself in the Somerset community. The question is structural: when a company writes the cheque for the roads it needs to operate, who is really getting the better end of the deal? Twenty-five years is a long time. It would be reassuring to know that someone has done the maths with genuine rigour – and published it.
Did you know you can trade lean hogs on the stock market? 🐷
25 February 2026 No, really. Alongside live cattle, oats, frozen orange juice and cocoa futures, lean hog contracts are genuinely traded on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange – in lots of 40,000 pounds, no less. We’re not making this up. It turns out the world of commodity trading goes way beyond the gold bars and oil barrels most people picture. Here are five “exotic” soft commodities that serious traders are watching right now: ☕ Coffee – A billion daily drinkers means relentless demand. But Brazilian soil moisture levels, Vietnamese harvest delays and tropical storms all move the price. Your morning flat white is a geopolitical event. 🍫 Cocoa – In 2024, Côte d’Ivoire cut its export contracts by 40% due to poor weather. Ghana fared little better. Two countries produce half the world’s supply — so when West Africa sneezes, the chocolate market catches a cold. 🌾 Oats – Grown across the EU, Russia, Canada and Australia, oats are more globally distributed than most soft commodities. But here’s the twist: disruption in one grain market tends to ripple across all grains, because they share the same growing regions, transport networks and storage systems. 🥩 Lean hogs and live cattle – Alternative proteins are getting all the headlines. Meanwhile, global meat consumption keeps rising. Livestock futures are a quiet corner of the market that demographic trends suggest won’t stay quiet for long. 🍊 Frozen concentrated orange juice (FCOJ) – Yes, it has its own futures market. In 2024, it hit all-time highs after disease-carrying sap-sucking insects devastated crops in Brazil (which produces nearly 70% of the world’s OJ) and a series of hurricanes compounded the damage in Florida. Extraordinary volatility in the most ordinary of breakfast staples. The common thread? These markets are driven by weather, disease, geography and human appetite — not by central bank policy or tech earnings cycles. For traders and commodity professionals who understand the supply side, that’s a very different — and potentially very interesting — kind of opportunity. Over to you. At Gapuma Group, we’re always curious about the commodity experiences that don’t make the standard textbooks. Have you ever dealt in something genuinely unusual — whether that’s a niche agricultural product, a regional soft commodity, or something else entirely that raised eyebrows at the trading desk?