MHMarkets:Global crops fall sharply, Haitham takes over as OPEC secretary-general

After the outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine crisis, in addition to closely following the development of the war itself, people around the world continued to focus on two things: whether this military conflict will evolve into a more catastrophic global energy crisis and food crisis. Although energy prices, especially natural gas prices in the European market, are still high, in the food sector: the prices of crops represented by wheat and corn have recently fallen sharply, which seems to indicate a sharp fall in food prices at least.

The outbreak of the Russia-Ukraine conflict pushed global food prices up 13 percent in March from the previous month, according to the United Nations' Food and Agriculture Organization. Since peaking in the second quarter, grain prices have continued to fall recently. Although the price in June was still higher than before the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, it was about 3% lower than that in March. Wheat futures on the Chicago Mercantile Exchange have fallen about 13% in the past month and are now roughly at levels before the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict on February 24, while corn prices have fallen to near their lowest levels this year. The recent drop in the prices of commodities such as crops, which has started to show up in some countries' consumer price indices, will help ease the current high inflationary pressures facing countries around the world in the coming months.

Haitham Al-Ghais officially assumed the post of OPEC secretary general on August 1, and will chair the OPEC+ ministerial-level meeting for the first time on August 3, which will determine the oil production of countries within the mechanism in September. In an exclusive interview published on the same day by Kuwait's "Viewpoint", Haytham Ghaith said that Russia's crude oil production is about 10 million barrels per day, accounting for 10% of global production, which means "out of the 10 barrels of oil produced per day" 1 barrel of oil comes from Russia”, so Russia is a very influential player in the global energy landscape.

Haitham Al-Ghais went on to stress that OPEC does not compete with Russia, and that Russia is "critical" to an agreement within the OPEC+ mechanism. At the same time, he said that his top priority after serving as OPEC secretary-general is to strengthen the constructive dialogue between the organization and non-OPEC oil-producing and consuming countries, and resolve differences between the parties to maintain the stability of the global oil market.

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