Alternative lenders cannot solely pick up the funding gap left by European commercial banks retreating from the commodity finance space in the Covid-19 epoch. But can bank-fund collaboration based on the different stages of the transportation of goods provide a viable deal template going forward?

Rio Tinto via its ownership of Turquoise Hill Resources has finally inked an agreement for the additional financing of the long-dated Oyu Tolgoi mining project in Mongolia - albeit with significant construction risk.

TXF is joined by Melanie Lawrence of Afreximbank, Gabriel Buck of GKB Ventures and Chris Mitman of Investec to discuss the challenges faced in providing export finance to Africa.

With European banks retreating from the commodity finance space, amid a raft of corporate losses and fraud cases in the wake of the pandemic, the risk perception of the sector is ballooning while the pool of funds shrink. But, despite an inevitable uptick in the cost of capital for traders and the need for alternative funding structures, could second and third tier corporates benefit from a shake up?

The high-profile collapse of Singaporean-based oil trader Hin Leong and other certain suspect cases has highlighted malpractices within the sector and concern for future lendings. Jonathan Bell assesses what this all means for the commodity finance community in the city state.