Size matters - but innovation, strong marketing and a willingness to take on risk are the key traits that this year's winners of the TXF Perfect 10 Deals of the Year all share.

Sanjeev Gupta is the man behind the ascent of Liberty House from commodity trading start-up into an international metals and industrials group. And in conversation with TXF, Gupta appears to have only got started.

The TXF commodity finance report has revealed a year-on-year rise in global volumes from 2016. With Middle Eastern traders turning up the heat, Russian producers looking beyond structured trade, and a decline in the usage of PXFs, the findings will surprise.

Lending demand from South Africa’s mining sector has been sluggish at best – a symptom of poor economic governance, a new mining charter verging on the absurd and the global commodities slump. However, with commodity prices rising, new sources of lending and a new political landscape emerging, prospective new deal flow is looking more solid than it has since 2012.

The UK Guarantee Scheme was not designed for financing mining projects. But Sirius Minerals, which has already overcome significant hurdles to its North Yorkshire polyhalite project, is making a bid to use it for a wrapped bond.