Given its status as the world's second largest aluminium producer, Rusal's sustainability-linked loan debut is good news for the growing ESG movement. But like other deals in the commodity sector that have closed before it, the financial structure in Rusal's deal lacks the teeth to leave no doubt that it is not tinged with a bit of greenwash.

De-dollarisation in Russia is on the rise. And with already limited access to the international syndicated loan markets in the face of US sanctions, euro-denominated funding is providing a lower cost of debt for commodity-linked Russian borrowers.

Nachtigal set the financing template for hydro in Cameroon in late 2018. Now a very ambitious project more than four times the size of Nachtigal is underway, but is it too much too soon in terms of of bankability?

In the midst of TXF Amsterdam, Natalia Heidendal, head of structured commodity finance at ING, talks about the search for producers within emerging markets, the rise of base metals and the risks imposed by sanctions and tariffs within the commodity market.

Small-scale miners in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) produce one third of the country’s cobalt amid dubious environmental and ethical standards. But can international and local mining groups help address the issue and provide regulatory frameworks to move the market to bankable structured financing?