Samsung in commodity pact: South Korea's Samsung Corp said on Tuesday its subsidiary in Germany had signed a $120 million commodity financing contract with ING Barings and Credit Lyonnais. A Samsung official said the financing contract would be made with the future cashflow resulting from its long-term copper purchaseand sales contracts as collateral. He said Samsung trades $600 million worth, or 320,000 tonnes, of copper a year. The interest rate is set at 350 basis points above the London Interbank Offered Rate (LIBOR) and Samsung would be receiving the money on April 30, he said. The loan maturity is one year with the possibility for rollovers, a Samsung statement said. Samsung said the loan would help its operations cost but gave no further details. Samsung Corp is the foreign trading and construction unit of South Korea's Samsung Group.

Sydney wheat market mixed: Sydney Futures Exchange (SFE) wheat was mixed on Tuesday, after a lower close on the Chicago Board of Trade overnight. The only contracts to trade were the May 1998 contract which rose 25 cents to A$181.25 and the January 1999 contract which traded down 50 cents to A$173.00 a tonne on a combined volume of 38 lots. SFE settlement prices rose marginally. "There was good grower interest in the January 1999 wheat put options for hedging against futurefalls," Phil Lindsay, of Ord Minnett Jardine Fleming Futures Ltd said.

CSCE sugar to rally after 5-year low: The nearby world sugar contract on the Coffee, Sugar & Cocoa Exchange hit a technical target on April 20 when it recorded a five-year low of 8.93 cents per pound. It appears that the low will hold and become the bottom of a rally. That rally, if it takes off quickly, would carry up about 2.80 cents. But the longer the nearby contract takes to challenge resistance at 10.20 cents, the March 31 one-month high, the less upside force the market will have. In any case, taking the long side here would entail little risk. A settlement below 8.93, a mere 0.24 cent away as of mid-session Friday, would be a clear tip-off of a further decline, or at least a sign of a dead-in-the-water market. The nearby contract's mid-session price Friday is 9.17 cents per pound and the 8.93-cents support level hasn't been tested again since it was recorded three days earlier. The 8.93-cents target was discoverable by astraightforward technical method: First find a symmetrical pattern on the charts, measure its height on the chart's vertical price scale. When the market breaks out of the pattern, project that measurement in the direction of the break from the point of the breakout to derive a price target.

Japan green coffee imports dip: Japan's green coffee imports in March totalled 29,072 tonnes, down 6.1 percent from a year earlier, according to Finance Ministry data released on Tuesday. Imports of roasted coffee totalled 115 tonnes in March, down from 160 tonnes in the same month a year earlier. Cumulative green coffee imports in the first three months of 1998 were 84,200 tonnes against 85,784 tonnes the same period a year before. Cumulative roasted coffee imports in the first three months of 1998 were 347 tonnes against 706 tonnes the year before.

Singapore rubber futures close lower: Singapore rubber futures closed lower across the board in moderate trade on Tuesday in line with lower Japaneseprices, dealers said. Prices in Tokyo and Osaka ended lower across the board on animated long liquidation by private investors against a backdrop of weak supply and demand factors, they said. "The morning session was quiet and featureless on lack of fresh incentives but prices were marked down slightly in the afternoon on some late local selling interest in sympathy with weaker prices in Tokyo and Osaka," a local dealer said.

Venezuelan firm's output down: State-owned aluminum smelter Venalum will see its annual primary aluminum output drop by 80,000 metric tons this year due to an accident that damaged some of the smelter's reduction cells, said Elias Ynaty, president of the Corporacion Venezolana de Guayana, or CVG. The CVG, which is the state-owned heavy industry holding company, runs Venalum. Venalum produced 428,095 metric tons of aluminum last year. It has an installed capacity of 430,000 metric tons. The damage, which occurred last week, will require the remainder of the year to fix and willcost $23.5 million, Ynaty added.

Aberfoyle to take over copper mine: A takeover bid announced on Tuesday for miner Aberfoyle Ltd and a warning by MIM Holdings Ltd to expect lower profits underscores two sides of the copper market. Zinc and lead miner Western Metals Ltd launched a A$270 million offer for Aberfoyle, whose main asset is the Gunpowder lode in Queensland, in an aim to bring a low-cost copper operation into the Western fold. A turnaround at Gunpowder under Aberfoyle is designed to boost annual production of London Metal Exchange-grade cathodes three-fold to 44,000 tonnes. Aberfoyle expects the mine, employing solvent extraction technology that sidesteps the costly smelting stage, to produce copper for US$0.40 cents a pound or less. At that level the mine would be a healthy contributor to any bottom line, even after outside costs, given forecasts for world copper prices of between $0.80 and $0.87 a pound.

Firms to sign steel pact: The state-run Venezuelan Investment Fund, or FIV,and Argentina's Techint Group are close to finalising an agreement to give the Argentine company a stake in state-owned seamless steel tube maker Tubos Industriales y Petroleros SA, FIV President Alberto Poletto said Friday. "I believe we'll arrive at an agreement in the next few weeks," Poletto told reporters after a press conference. The FIV, which runs the government's privatisation program, and Techint were still discussing the size of the stake, he said.

Mining major's copper output up: Dual-listed mining company Rio Tinto Ltd (RTP), the world's largest mining conglomerate, reported Monday higher copper and iron ore production during its fiscal first quarter ended March 31, compared with the previous quarter ended December 31, 1997, offset by lower gold and aluminum production. Coal and titanium dioxide feedstock production was largely unchanged. In a statement, Rio Tinto highlighted a 7 per cent rise in copper mine output with expanded output from Grasberg mine in Indonesia more than offsettingfalling grades at other copper mines. Meanwhile, refined copper production from Rio Tinto's Kennecott operation continued to rise on the back of an improved smelting and refining performance. Iron ore production rose 4 per cent, while production of borates rose 6 per cent. Gold mine production fell 1 per cent on the back of lower grades, while refined production fell 15 per cent. Aluminum production was down 1 per cent. As of March 31, 1998 Rio Tinto had provisionally priced 262 million pounds of copper sales from its operations in the US, Chile, Indonesia and Portugal, at an average 80 US cents a pound.

IOC issues tender to sell naphtha: State-owned Indian Oil Corp (IOC) has issued a tender to sell 25,000 tonnes of high aromatics naphtha (HAN) lifting May 8-10 from Bombay on the West coast, traders said Tuesday. The tender closes April 30 and is valid for one day. IOC last awarded a 22,000-tonne HAN cargo lifting March28-30 from Bombay to Dutch trader Vitol at a discount of $32 per tonne to Japanesespot quotes, traders said.

US West Coast oil discounts flat: US West Coast light crude discounts were flat Monday, amid quiet markets, traders said. Traders stayed sidelined to assess the direction of June'sAlaska North Slope (ANS) market. With the discount unchanged, ANS crude prices rose in line with a 30-cent gain in June spot light sweet crude. A leading seller of ANS offered at $2.50 a barrel off June for May delivery.