Frankfurt. The trend continues: The Iran War and the El Niño weather phenomenon were also the most important influencing factors on the raw materials market in September.
Prices of several energy and agricultural commodities rose as Iran blocked key shipping routes and heat and floods hit crops. The most important raw material index, the Goldman Sachs Commodity Index (GSCI), rose by around 4.5 percent.
In particular, a fossil fuel that was long thought dead made a surprising comeback. An overview.
The commodity that performed best in September was the loser of the month in August: orange juice. Futures contracts traded in New York rose in price by more than 27 percent in September.
Such price fluctuations are not unusual for agricultural raw materials such as orange juice. It is a less liquid market and individual large positions can have a significant impact on prices.
In addition, production can only respond to changes in demand with a significant delay, as some time passes from cultivation to harvest. There is a term for this from the livestock trade: “pig cycle”.
But there are also fundamental reasons for the increase in the price of orange juice: According to Rabobank, production is likely to be 13 percent below the previous season's level. There is also a risk that final production could even be below this forecast value if the third and fourth quarters become unusually hot.
Meteorologists fear that the El Niño weather phenomenon could be particularly strong this time. This is a warming of the sea surface in the eastern Pacific. It occurs every two to seven years and lasts about nine to twelve months. The result is extreme weather events that vary from region to region and rising temperatures worldwide.
Because of El Niño, production could be lower in the coming crop year, Rabobank analysts warn. “Prolonged dry spells at the end of winter coupled with above-average temperatures for extended periods could impact some flowering for the 2027/28 crop season,” they write.
In second place in September was Brent crude oil, which rose in price by more than 14 percent. At times the price reached highs of almost $110 per barrel (159 liters) after Saudi Arabia was forced to suspend operations on its East-West pipeline following Iranian attacks.
A feared scenario thus occurred. Saudi Arabia temporarily diverted around five million barrels of crude oil per day to the port of Yanbu on the Red Sea via this pipeline, thereby ensuring that oil prices did not skyrocket towards $200 per barrel despite the blockade of the Strait of Hormuz.
The oil multinational Saudi Aramco has now partially ramped up operations on the pipeline and it is now running at around 50 percent of its capacity. But the risks remain and the pipeline could become the target of attacks again at any time.
With an increase of over six percent, coal took third place in the September raw materials ranking. Because the fossil fuel is experiencing a comeback due to the war. Higher gas prices because of the Iran war mean coal consumption is expected to hit a record this year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said.
At the end of last year, the IEA predicted that coal demand would decline slightly this year and fall by 2030. Instead, demand is expected to increase by 1.2 percent.
Europe, China, South Korea and Japan in particular have switched their mix from gas to coal-fired power generation, according to the IEA. In addition to increased gas prices, higher electricity consumption from air conditioning due to El Niño heat also drove coal demand.
There are also concerns on the supply side: the world's largest coal exporter, Indonesia, delivered less coal in September than in five years. The reason is low water levels on important rivers for coal transport and the fact that the government has cut production quotas in order to support the price in the long term and thus increase government revenue.
The winner of August is the loser in September: the price of cocoa fell by more than 19 percent.
The same thing applies to cocoa as it does to orange juice: such price fluctuations are not unusual for agricultural raw materials. Liquidity on the cocoa market is also low and volatility is correspondingly high.
In the medium term, however, there is a risk of a supply deficit. Ghana's state exporter warns that cocoa production in the world's second largest producer country could collapse by more than a third in the 2026/27 season. The trigger is heavy rainfall, which increases the risk of plant diseases. The problem is exacerbated by El Niño.
