Market insights
News and analysis for people who produce, hold and sell this material. What a development means for Southern African chrome, copper, coal, manganese and iron ore, explained by the desk that places it.
Latest · Copper · 12 Oct 2026
Copper's Tight Market Opens a Window for Copperbelt Sellers
Copper finished last week near record levels, with Chinese import demand at a four-year high and prompt metal trading above forward metal. For Copperbelt producers…
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Chrome Exports Slow and Zimbabwe Tightens: What Sellers Should Do
South Africa's chrome ore exports slipped in August with Chinese port stocks above 5 million tonnes, and Zimbabwe is tightening controls on every consignment.…
Minerals Council Growth Strategy: What It Means for Producers
The Minerals Council South Africa has launched an investment and growth strategy built around faster permitting and a working mining cadastre. It is a welcome shift…
Copper Cathode and Blister: What Buyers Actually Specify
Cathode, blister and anode price off the same exchange but are not the same purchase. What the specification, weighing basis and payment structure must say.
How to Sell Chrome Concentrate as a South African Producer
What a ferrochrome buyer needs before they will look at your material, why most producer offers are ignored, and how to get your position straight first.
Why Your FCO Is Not Getting Responses
Full Corporate Offers get ignored for a small number of predictable reasons. What a buyer sees when yours lands, and what to change before the next one.
NCNDA and Protecting Your Position as a Seller
Non circumvention agreements are routinely misused to lock producers into arrangements that give them nothing. What a fair one looks like and what to refuse.
Selling Thermal Coal Without Richards Bay Entitlement
Terminal access, not tonnage, is what stops most South African coal sellers. The Maputo route, the cargo sizes that work and what a buyer will ask you to prove.
Assay, Title and Port Access: What Kills a Producer's Deal
Deals between genuine producers and genuine buyers collapse for a small number of repeated reasons. All three are fixable before you approach anybody.
RB1, RB2 and RB3: South African Thermal Coal Grades Explained
Calorific value, ash and sulphur separate the three South African export coal grades. Why RB3 exists and how the API4 index prices the difference.
Iron Ore Fines and Lumpy: Buying South African Hematite
Fines and lumpy are priced differently because of what happens inside the blast furnace. How South African hematite is specified on a 62% Fe basis and moved.
Russian Grain into Africa and Asia: Ports and Contract Forms
Russia is the largest wheat exporter in the world and its freight advantage into Africa is structural. How the trade is specified, inspected and contracted.
Escrow, Letters of Credit and Why Drawdown Matters
A payment instrument that protects only one side will kill a deal at the last moment. How drawdownable escrow and confirmed letters of credit really differ.
How Chrome Concentrate Is Actually Priced
Grade is only the headline. A chrome cargo settles on the premium schedule, the review cycle, the moisture basis and where the assay is taken.
Chrome Concentrate Grades: 40-42% and 46-48% Cr₂O₃
What the Cr₂O₃ percentage on a chrome offer means for ferrochrome producers, and why South African and Zimbabwean concentrates occupy different niches.
Steelpoort and Rustenburg: Inside the Bushveld Chrome Belt
The Bushveld Igneous Complex holds roughly three quarters of the world's chromite. How its eastern and western limbs differ, and what that means for sourcing.
Zimbabwe's Great Dyke: Africa's High-Grade Chrome Frontier
A 550 kilometre seam holds the world's second largest chromite reserve and its highest grades. How Zimbabwean 46 to 48% concentrate reaches world markets.
Richards Bay and the API4: How South African Coal Ships
RBCT is one of the largest coal export terminals on earth and the physical anchor of the API4 index. What buyers of Panamax cargoes need to know.
Coal Logistics: Maputo against Richards Bay
Richards Bay runs on entitlement and Capesize economics. Maputo runs on road, rail and smaller vessels. Which terminal suits your cargo, and why.
Kalahari Manganese: From the Northern Cape to Port Elizabeth
South Africa hosts around 80% of the world's known manganese resources. How Kalahari ore is graded, railed and shipped, and why cargoes start at 30,000 tonnes.
Buying Rough Zambian Emeralds: A Parcel Buyer's Guide
Zambia produces roughly a fifth of the world's emeralds, prized for their deep bluish green colour. How verified rough parcels are graded and transacted.
Zambian Copper: Sourcing from the Copperbelt
Zambia is Africa's second largest copper producer, and the Copperbelt's cathodes move to world markets along corridors every buyer should understand.
FOB, FCA and CIF: Incoterms for African Commodity Trade
The three letter codes on an offer sheet decide who pays for what, where risk transfers and how disputes resolve. A practical guide for African cargoes.
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