Crude's war premium deflates as the Fed hikes; copper and soybeans recover: weekly settlements, Sep. 11–17
For Sep. 11–17, a Saudi supply workaround deflated crude's war premium while the Fed's first rate hike since 2023 lifted the dollar to a seven-week high, and copper and soybeans led a recovery from Friday's USDA report.
Crude oil's Middle East supply premium deflated across the five sessions to Thursday, September 17, 2026, and the retreat stayed contained: Brent's expiring front-month contract held above $100 a barrel, US ultra-low sulfur diesel settled at a record, and traffic through the Strait of Hormuz kept thinning. Two other forces shaped the week. The Federal Reserve raised its policy rate a quarter point on Wednesday, its first increase since 2023, which lifted the dollar to a seven-week high before it eased a day later. And Friday's USDA report cut the corn yield and raised soybean production, after which November soybeans recovered 1.8% from that session's close while December corn finished almost exactly where it started.
Data cutoff: 5:00 p.m. ET on September 17, 2026. Each market is tracked in one fixed futures month so consecutive weekly recaps compare the same contract: COMEX December 2026 gold (
GCZ26), NYMEX November 2026 WTI (CLX26), ICE December 2026 Brent (BRNZ26), CBOT December 2026 corn (CZ26), CBOT November 2026 soybeans (SX26), and COMEX December 2026 copper (HGZ26). Percentage changes compare the Friday, September 11 close proxy against the Thursday, September 17 settlement, both read from the same contract page. MarketWatch historical closes are close proxies rather than exchange-certified settlement benchmarks; the September 17 figure on each page is the settlement the page publishes. Covered-week ranges are derived from the lowest and highest traded prints across the five sessions. Week-over-week volume and open-interest changes could not be reconstructed for the full set of contracts and are marked Data temporarily unavailable rather than estimated.Settlement snapshot
| Market | Fixed contract | Sep. 11 close proxy | Sep. 17 settlement | Week-over-week move | Sep. 11–17 derived range | Sep. 17 volume / 65-day average | Open interest, Sep. 17 | Week-over-week volume / open-interest change |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Soybeans | CBOT Nov. 2026 (SX26) 1 | 1,296.50¢ 1 | 1,319.75¢ 1 | +1.79% (1,319.75 ÷ 1,296.50 − 1) 1 | 1,292.00–1,335.25¢/bu, derived 1 | 133.76K / 134.11K, 100% of average 1 | 478,459 2 | −13,036 versus 491,495 at the Sep. 10 close 2 |
| Copper | COMEX Dec. 2026 (HGZ26) 3 | $6.5480/lb 3 | $6.6615/lb 3 | +1.73% ($6.6615 ÷ $6.5480 − 1) 3 | $6.3445–$6.6725/lb, derived 3 | 45.32K / 19.87K, 228% of average 3 | 167,280 4 | Data temporarily unavailable 4 |
| WTI | NYMEX Nov. 2026 (CLX26) 5 | $95.94/bbl 5 | $97.23/bbl 5 | +1.34% ($97.23 ÷ $95.94 − 1) 5 | $94.64–$101.69/bbl, derived 5 | 249.1K / 99.08K, 251% of average 5 | Data temporarily unavailable | Data temporarily unavailable |
| Brent | ICE Dec. 2026 (BRNZ26) 6 | $99.78/bbl 6 | $99.93/bbl 6 | +0.15% ($99.93 ÷ $99.78 − 1) 6 | $97.92–$104.71/bbl, derived 6 | 437.21K / 202.23K, 216% of average 6 | 478,118 7 | Data temporarily unavailable 7 |
| Corn | CBOT Dec. 2026 (CZ26) 8 | 530.25¢ 8 | 530.50¢ 8 | +0.05% (530.50 ÷ 530.25 − 1) 8 | 523.25–544.75¢/bu, derived 8 | 201.88K / 232.51K, 87% of average 8 | 949,969 9 | Data temporarily unavailable 9 |
| Gold | COMEX Dec. 2026 (GCZ26) 10 | $4,408.90/oz 10 | $4,399.70/oz 10 | −0.21% ($4,399.70 ÷ $4,408.90 − 1) 10 | $4,273.30–$4,444.90/oz, derived 10 | 166.95K / 99.1K, 168% of average 10 | 313,365 11 | Data temporarily unavailable 11 |
Soybeans led the six tracked contracts at +1.79%, with copper close behind at +1.73% and WTI third at +1.34%. Brent and corn settled within a fifth of a percentage point of unchanged, and gold was the only market to finish the span lower, down 0.21%.
Oil: a supply workaround deflates the war premium
December Brent rose 0.15%, from $99.78 to $99.93 a barrel, and November WTI gained 1.34%, from $95.94 to $97.23. Those net moves hide a round trip. WTI traded as high as $101.69 on Tuesday and Brent reached $103.98 as attacks on Saudi export infrastructure pushed prices toward four-month highs, then both benchmarks fell about 3% on Wednesday and kept sliding into Thursday. 56
The physical event was a strike on Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline, which carries about 7 million barrels a day to the Red Sea. Three pumping stations were damaged, loadings at the Yanbu export hub were suspended, and Riyadh cancelled some deliveries to European customers. Traders told Reuters that a prolonged closure could cut off as much as 4% of global oil supply. 12
Two developments then unwound most of that premium. Saudi Arabia began offering additional cargoes to Asian refiners through ship-to-ship transfers off Oman's Sohar port, and reporting emerged that around half the pipeline's capacity could return within days. Energy Secretary Wright told CNBC on Tuesday that crude should be flowing through the link again shortly. 1213
The tracked months sit well below the contracts that expire first. October WTI settled at $101.91 and November Brent at $104.82, roughly four dollars above the December Brent and November WTI figures in the snapshot. That gap is a backwardation that keeps near-term barrels scarce even as the headline premium fades. 1213
Official inventory data for the week ended September 11, released Wednesday, showed commercial crude stocks slipping 0.6 million barrels to 423.4 million barrels, about 1% above the five-year average. Gasoline stocks rose 0.8 million barrels and distillates 1.6 million barrels; distillate inventories still sit 13% below the five-year average, and total commercial petroleum stocks rose 2.6 million barrels. Refineries ran at 96.8% of capacity, processing 17.3 million barrels a day, down 256,000 barrels a day from the prior week, and crude imports rose to 7.1 million barrels a day. 14
Product markets carry the tightness the crude headline no longer shows. European gasoil futures and US ultra-low sulfur diesel futures both settled at record highs on Tuesday, and the national average retail diesel price rose $0.318 to a record $6.285 a gallon on September 14, $2.546 above a year earlier. Retail regular gasoline rose to $4.319 a gallon. A Ukrainian drone strike damaged a refinery in the Russian city of Yaroslavl on Thursday. 1214
Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz kept tightening. The USDA's weekly Grain Transportation Report, citing preliminary Kpler data, counted four commodity vessels transiting the strait on Monday, down from 10 the previous day and against roughly 125 large commercial vessels a day before the conflict began. 15
OPEC's press page still lists the seven-member statement of September 6 as its most recent release, so this week brought no new output decision from the group. 16
The confirmation point for oil is the pipeline timeline against the tanker counts: daily Hormuz transits have to stop falling while the repaired capacity comes back, and the next EIA report will show whether distillate stocks keep building.
Copper: Chinese buying returns after the record-rally unwind
December COMEX copper rose 1.73%, from $6.5480 to $6.6615 a pound, and the contract's $6.3445–$6.6725 span shows the shape of it: a slide into midweek on dollar strength and rising inventories, then a Thursday jump of more than 2.2% that took the metal to its high for the week. 3
Physical demand out of China did the work. Alastair Munro, senior base metals strategist at Marex Group, described the buying as genuine physical demand rather than speculative positioning, and the supporting indicators moved the same way. The Yangshan premium, which measures China's appetite for imported copper, rose to $118 a tonne on Wednesday, its highest since October 2022. Domestic physical premiums over Shanghai Futures Exchange prices reached their highest since December 2023, and copper in ShFE-monitored warehouses fell to 54,780 tonnes, the lowest since January 2024. 17
Part of that warehouse decline is metal leaving for the United States ahead of possible import duties, the same tariff expectation that drove copper to records in London and New York earlier in September. Washington has yet to decide on refined copper tariffs, and that uncertainty is what took the momentum out of the rally in the first place. 17
Copper's open interest stands at 167,280 contracts, and Thursday's volume ran at 228% of the contract's 65-day average, the heaviest relative turnover of the six markets tracked here. 34
The confirmation point is whether the Yangshan premium and the Shanghai warehouse draw keep widening, and whether the tariff decision lands.
Gold: a Fed hike, then a rebound
December gold slipped 0.21%, from $4,408.90 to $4,399.70 a troy ounce, and again the net figure understates the week. Gold touched a near six-week low on Wednesday as the Fed decision and the dollar's jump landed, then rose more than 2% on Thursday; spot gold traded at $4,360.36 and the December future settled 0.3% higher on the day. The contract's weekly span ran from $4,273.30 to $4,444.90. 1018
The macro sequence is what moved gold. August consumer prices rose 0.4% month over month and 3.4% year over year, with core prices up 0.3%, and the print left the Fed on course to tighten. 19 The FOMC then raised the target range a quarter point to 3.75%–4.00% in a unanimous vote, its first increase since 2023, and the updated projections showed 16 of 18 officials expecting at least one more hike this year, with the policy rate reaching the 4.00%–4.25% range by the end of 2026 and holding there through 2027. Policymakers marked their PCE inflation estimate up to 3.7% and pushed a return to the 2% target out to 2029. 2021
Two-year Treasury yields, the maturity most sensitive to policy expectations, hit their highest in more than two years on the decision. The dollar rose the most in three months against the euro on Wednesday and then eased to 100.23 on Thursday as Treasury yields and oil prices retreated. Rate futures put the odds of a follow-up increase at the October meeting at 51%, up from 44% a day earlier, and the implied probability of at least one more hike by year-end at about 90%. 182022
UBS told clients that rising fiscal deficits, heavier debt burdens, eventual dollar weakness and a resumption of Fed easing next year should support gold through the near-term volatility, a view that points past this week's rate repricing. 18
The confirmation points are Friday's Bank of Japan decision, which is expected to lift rates to a 31-year high, and how much of the market's more hawkish path than the Fed's own projections survives the next inflation print. 22
Soybeans: export demand outruns a bigger crop
November soybeans gained 1.79%, from 1,296.50¢ to 1,319.75¢ a bushel. The base is a report-day close: the contract had settled at 1,332.25¢ on September 10, and the September WASDE knocked it down 2.7% on Friday to 1,296.50¢. It then traded between 1,292.00¢ and 1,335.25¢ and settled near the top of that range. 1
The September 11 report raised the soybean yield estimate a tenth of a bushel to 52.8 bushels per acre and put production at 4,535 million bushels, up from 4,519 million in August. US ending stocks for 2026/27 were trimmed to 310 million bushels from 320 million, and world ending stocks edged down to 124.0 million metric tons from 124.2 million. 2324
Export demand absorbed the larger crop. Net soybean export sales for the week ended September 10 reached 1.70 million metric tons, and unshipped balances of corn, soybeans and wheat for 2026/27 totalled 37.97 million metric tons, 5% above a year earlier. 15
Field conditions were steady. As of September 13, 58% of the soybean crop was rated good or excellent, unchanged from the week before, with 44% of acreage dropping leaves against a 2021–2025 average of 37%, and 6% harvested against an average of 3%. 25
Soybean open interest fell to 478,459 contracts at Thursday's close from the 491,495 reported at the September 10 close, a reduction of 13,036 contracts and the only week-over-week open-interest comparison available for the six tracked markets. 2
The confirmation point is whether the Chinese buying pace holds after the crop report reset prices lower.
Corn: a yield cut that prices absorbed
December corn finished essentially flat, up 0.05%, from 530.25¢ to 530.50¢ a bushel. It opened the week by falling 0.66% on report day, from 533.75¢ to 530.25¢, traded between 523.25¢ and 544.75¢, and settled mid-range on volume at 87% of its 65-day average, the lightest relative turnover of the six tracked markets. 8
The September 11 report cut the corn yield to 178.5 bushels per acre from 180.7 in August and put production at 15,800 million bushels, down from 16,013 million. US 2026/27 ending stocks were cut to 1,567 million bushels from 1,653 million, and world ending stocks to 272.1 million metric tons from 274.7 million. 2324
Harvest is running ahead of the normal pace. By September 13, 8% of the corn crop was harvested against a five-year average of 6%, 42% was mature against 38%, and 86% was dented against 84%. The good-to-excellent rating improved a point to 57%, well below the 67% of a year earlier. 25
Weather cut both ways across the Corn Belt. Heavy rain fell across the upper Midwest during the week, arriving too late to lift maturing yields but useful against the drought, and it risks slowing combines as harvest accelerates. 15 At the same time, record diesel at $6.285 a gallon raises the cost of every load moved out of the field, and the USDA's grain report put Class I rail rates for corn up by $200 to $330 a car starting in October depending on carrier. 1415
The confirmation points are the harvest pace through the last week of September and whether net corn export sales of 1.03 million metric tons for the week ended September 10 keep the export book ahead of last year. 15
Cross-market read
- The Fed set the week's common factor. A unanimous hike and projections pointing to a higher policy rate through 2027 lifted two-year yields to a two-year high and the dollar to a seven-week peak, which pressured gold and copper into midweek before both recovered as oil and yields retreated. 2022
- Crude lost its premium without losing its level. The Sohar workaround and a repair timeline for the East-West pipeline pulled crude back about 3% from a four-month high, while record diesel prices and thinning Hormuz traffic kept the physical market tight and the curve in backwardation. 1213
- Grains split on the same report. A 2.2-bushel cut to the corn yield produced no corn rally, while a 0.1-bushel increase to the soybean yield came with export sales strong enough to lift soybeans 1.8% off the report-day close. 1523
- Copper's rebound runs through China, not through the macro trade. The metal fell with the dollar early and then rose on a Yangshan premium at a three-year high and the lowest Shanghai warehouse stocks since January 2024, with the US tariff decision still open. 17
What to watch next: whether Hormuz transits stop falling as East-West pipeline capacity returns, Friday's Bank of Japan decision and October FOMC pricing, the next EIA distillate build, and the US decision on refined copper tariffs.
References
- 1CBOT soybeans Nov. 2026 price history
marketwatch.com
- 2CBOT soybeans Nov. 2026 contract overview
marketwatch.com
- 3COMEX copper Dec. 2026 price history
marketwatch.com
- 4COMEX copper Dec. 2026 contract overview
marketwatch.com
- 5NYMEX WTI Nov. 2026 price history
marketwatch.com
- 6ICE Brent Dec. 2026 price history
marketwatch.com
- 7ICE Brent Dec. 2026 contract overview
marketwatch.com
- 8CBOT corn Dec. 2026 price history
marketwatch.com
- 9CBOT corn Dec. 2026 contract overview
marketwatch.com
- 10COMEX gold Dec. 2026 price history
marketwatch.com
- 11COMEX gold Dec. 2026 contract overview
marketwatch.com
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- 17Copper price rallies as Chinese buyers return
mining.com.au
- 18
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- 21Federal Reserve issues FOMC statement
federalreserve.gov
- 22
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- 25Crop Progress, September 14, 2026
release.nass.usda.gov
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