Spain Retaliates As expected, Spain adopted legislation specifying that only EU-origin biodiesel can be used to satisfy that its biodiesel blending requirement. The measure effectively bans the importation and use of Argentine biodiesel and was adopted as retaliation against Argentina's decision to nationalize YPF, Argentina's largest petroleum company. Last week President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner expropriated 51 percent of YPF controlled by Spanish oil company Repsol.Argentina exported about $991 million worth of biodiesel to Spain in 2011, and these biodiesel imports have largely put the Spanish biodiesel industry out of business. Thus, the ban will be applauded by Spanish biodiesel makers who should now be able to rebuild their...
What You Need to Know Today: Cattle futures extended their sharp selloff Friday as weakening cash cattle prices, deteriorating feedlot profitability, and reduced packer demand continued to weigh on the market. The inability of futures to sustain a rally following last week's bullish Cattle on...
As predicted, the Federal Reserve held rates steady at the last meeting before the midterm elections, likely in part because of the election (see WPI 19 October and 22 September). The decision comes at the tail end of a midterm election cycle that has been marked by the two parties campaigning...
Key Takeaways: WPI’s new EU rapeseed crushing margin models point to weaker processing returns over the next four months due to higher rapeseed procurement costs and weaker product values. Statistical forecasts call for German crushing margins to decline from €181/MT to €...
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.