The boom in U.S. crude oil production has been a game changer in terms of handling and refining crude oil as well as supply. This is impacting the market as are several other factors.There are many type of crude oil produced around the world with differing quality characteristics. The two most important qualities that define crude oil are density and sulfur content. Density is described as heavy or light and from high to low. Sulfur content is described as sour or sweet and also from high to low. Over the years, U.S. refineries have been built to handle a certain type of oil, much of it imported and heavy. Then came the U.S. oil boom with a lighter and sweeter type than the kind that the U.S. refining capacity (built up over decades with bi...
What You Need to Know Today: Oil prices surged today following reports of tanker attacks off the coast of Saudi Arabia by Houthi rebels and renewed U.S. threats to escalate military strikes against Iran, heightening concerns over potential disruptions to Middle East energy supplies. Brent crud...
Key Takeaways: The latest UN data shows solid progress reducing global hunger and food insecurity. The geography of hunger-affected people has shifted substantially, however, and Africa is now the most affected region. To understand why hunger patterns have shifted and what policy option...
USDA’s monthly cattle on feed report for 1 July will be released tomorrow. Analysts’ pre-report consensus estimates are for the total inventory on feed to be 102.2 percent of last year. Those estimates imply an on-feed inventory of 11.327 million head. If accurate, that would be the...
From WPI Consulting
Communicating importance of value-added products
Facing increasing pressure to quantify the value of export promotion efforts to investors, a U.S. industry organization retained WPI to develop a quantitative model that better communicated the importance of exports. The resulting model concluded that value-added meat exports contributed $0.45 cents per bushel to the price of corn, increasing support for that sector’s financial support of WPI’s client. In addition to serving the red meat industry with this type of analysis, WPI has generated similar deliverables for the U.S. soybean and poultry/egg industries.