This week, it is difficult to remain focused on our market as the international situation is deteriorating and concerns are growing. 

Even if we want to remain optimistic, the crisis in the Ukraine continues to worry us by reshuffling the cards dating back to the end of the Cold War and the fall of the Berlin Wall. 

In this poisonous context, raw materials have become formidable weapons. 

• - Gas prices have risen so much that they are strangling all Western economies. At the same time, SinoRussian supply agreements were signed in order to avoid possible retaliatory measures or boycotts that could result from a war. It should be borne in mind that liquefied gas is today a competitive alternative to circumvent the possible closure of gas pipelines. 
• - Agreements on the Iranian nuclear issue are well underway, which could allow a relaxation on the oil front with the return of this major producer to international trade. A signature under the aegis of the EIA could calm the uninterrupted rise in the price of oil, which is approaching $100 a barrel. Who still remembers that during the first lockdown it was necessary to pay to deliver oil? However, the rise in hydrocarbons cannot stop there as the launch of new exploration projects has become problematic due to the difficulty of financing them in the face of climate challenges. 
• - Ukraine is an important producer of cereals but above all a very large exporter (nearly 60 million tonnes). A war in this region could take the markets into uncharted territory. 
• - Inflation continues to break records while no one knows if there is a real capacity to control prices that would not disrupt all financial markets. 
• - ...

 In such a context, how can we not be more positive about the future of our market prices? 

• - The rise in oil prices makes cotton prices competitive. 
• - The rise in grain prices reduces the area devoted to cotton, which is increasingly expensive to produce. 
• - Climate change is causing drought in the United States and floods in Brazil. It is impossible to predict the weather of the coming harvests.

Demand seems to be slowing down for this season with increasing interest in the next one. It is true that the situation is complex: 

• - Shipments are still very problematic due to the shipping crisis. 
• - The crops still to be sold are not very large. India, after having sold a lot at the beginning of the season, especially to Bangladesh, will probably have to import cotton, while production in the northern hemisphere is already largely committed. 
• - Brazilian producers, without having many doubts about their ability to sell their future very large crop, will meet this week in Dubai with players from the Indian subcontinent.

In such an environment, cotton should remain well oriented and, in the international context that we are experiencing, the US Dollar will continue to be very volatile.