In this week's Market Movers Americas, presented by Brooke Hansen:
• Low Mississippi River levels stall barges
• French refinery strikes tighten diesel supplies
• US weighs move on Russian aluminum
• Arctic outbreak possible in MISO this winter
This week,
Barge traffic along the Mississippi River continues to face challenges with water levels at multi-decade lows. This can cause backlogs for grains, oilseeds, and biofuels, which are transported in barges from the Midwest to the Gulf Coast, and for fertilizers, which move north from the Gulf Coast to Midwest farmers and are vital for next year's crop.
Oil markets will be closely monitoring the refinery outages in Europe, which have tightened Atlantic Basin diesel supplies ahead of winter heating demand. French refinery strikes have reduced refinery operations by 840,000 b/d. ExxonMobil's two refineries are restarting over the next few weeks, but two of TotalEnergies' plants are still shut, with strike action at more of its facilities.
The US aluminum industry is monitoring potential action from the White House following a report that officials are considering a possible ban on Russian aluminum or sanctions on Russian aluminum companies. The US Aluminum Association said it supports "any and all efforts deemed necessary by the US government."
The Midcontinent Independent System Operator will be holding its Winter Readiness Workshop Oct. 20. Under typical demand and outages, MISO projects enough resources to cover peak load forecasts. But under high load and high outages, MISO generation could fall short in January. And weather experts are expected to warn that there is a risk of an Aarctic outbreak in December and January.
I'm Brooke Hansen. Thank you for kicking off your Monday with S&P Global Commodity Insights.