Top 10 Most Traded Physical Commodities
Top 10 Most Traded Physical Commodities
Global trade is powered by the movement of a handful of physical commodities that dominate seaborne flows and finance demand. These are the products banks, traders, and financiers structure billions in facilities around each year. Below are the top 10 most traded commodities, with notes on scale, trade mechanics, and why they matter to the financing market.
“Trade finance follows where the tonnage and turnover are. The biggest commodities attract the deepest liquidity and the toughest controls.”
The 10 Most Traded Commodities
- Crude Oil — Still the largest by value, driving trillions in annual flows. Requires LCs, repo, prepayment, and hedging.
- Refined Petroleum Products — Diesel, gasoline, jet fuel. Heavy users of LC confirmation, discounting, and borrowing bases.
- Natural Gas (LNG) — Over 400 million tonnes per year shipped. Structured on long-term SPAs plus spot, often requiring confirmed LCs and PRI.
- Iron Ore — The backbone of steelmaking; major bulk commodity with contracts running into billions annually.
- Coal — Thermal and metallurgical. Continues to be a top-five seaborne trade by tonnage, even as energy transition advances.
- Grains (Wheat, Corn, Rice) — Core agricultural flows. Pre-export finance, warehouse receipts, and collateral management dominate.
- Gold — Traded globally with enormous notional turnover. Financing relies on custody, AML controls, and repo structures.
- Copper — Cathodes, concentrates, anodes. Essential to infrastructure and energy transition, requiring LCs and borrowing bases.
- Coffee — One of the world’s largest soft commodity trades, requiring receivables finance and structured LC flows.
- Sugar — A leading agricultural export, often financed via pre-export lines and inventory facilities.
Snapshot by Category
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