June 2025 Iran–Israel/US conflict ("Twelve-Day War")

Morrowfly tracks 17 commodities — crude oil joined the watchlist in September 2026; natural gas is still not tracked, so the gas-price channel sits outside our series. The channels that did reach our commodities: (1) energy → fertilizer cost — real and the main channel, with Iran and Egypt representing roughly a fifth of global urea trade (CRU); (2) energy → freight and marine-insurance costs on conflict-zone routes — real but brief and second-order for FOB grain prices (StoneX, June 2025); (3) risk pricing — a one-day short-covering bounce in grains (Reuters, June 13, 2025). Physical grain supply was never at risk: neither Iran nor Israel is a meaningful grain exporter, no grain corridor was blocked, and the Strait of Hormuz stayed open (CRS retrospective). This record covers only the June 13–24, 2025 episode — not a later, separate 2026 conflict phase reported in 2026 sources.

The feared transmission was oil: Brent surged more than a tenth in the first days, climbing above $77 a barrel, and parliament's Hormuz vote was framed as putting a fifth of the world's oil supply at risk (Reuters, June 2025). For grains, funds were heavily short and Euronext wheat climbed on June 13 as investors covered shorts after prices hit contract lows — 'some shorts could be liquidated in the current environment' (Andrey Sizov, Sovecon, via Reuters, June 13, 2025). For fertilizer, Bloomberg reported global urea prices surging as the conflict threatened supplies from a significant producing region (Farm Policy News, June 2025).

• Wheat

  May 2025 → Jun 2025 · ZW=F month-end closes

  -1.0%

  Essentially flat as a May→Jun month-end snapshot; the June 13 one-day +3.28% (ZW=F daily close, 12→13 Jun) bounce fully reversed. A monthly window, not an event-window measure.

• Corn

  May 2025 → Jul 2025 · ZC=F month-end closes

  -11.3%

  Fell as a May→Jul month-end snapshot — a window broader than the Jun 13–24 event; not an event-window return.

• Soybeans

  May 2025 → Jul 2025 · ZS=F month-end closes

  -7.7%

  Fell as a May→Jul month-end snapshot — a window broader than the Jun 13–24 event; not an event-window return.

• Rice

  May 2025 → Jul 2025 · ZR=F month-end closes

  -9.0%

  Fell as a May→Jul month-end snapshot; no verified conflict transmission.

• Coffee

  May 2025 → Jul 2025 · KC=F month-end closes

  -13.6%

  Fell as a May→Jul month-end snapshot; no verified conflict transmission.

• Palm oil

  May 2025 → Jul 2025 · World Bank Pink Sheet monthly prices

  +7.6%

  The only tracked gainer — a modest move on the monthly Pink Sheet series (not FCPO futures), plausibly energy-linked, not verified as conflict-driven.

• urea/fertilizer (not tracked)

  mid-Jun → early Jul 2025 · External: published urea benchmarks (Green Markets/Bloomberg, CRU, StoneX)

  Benchmark: External: published urea benchmarks via contemporary reporting (Green Markets/Bloomberg, CRU, StoneX), mid-Jun 2025; not computed from our series

  —

  US Gulf urea spot +~16% in a week, Middle East +11%; $50–110/t jumps across Middle East, Algeria, Brazil and NOLA (CRU, Jul 7, 2025); StoneX: 20–40% in days. A cost shock to growers, not a commodity price move.

Urea figures are published benchmark moves, not our futures series. The June 13 one-day grain moves are contemporary reporting, not month-end closes. Exact local-time dating of the first strikes differs by timezone (June 12 US-time vs June 13 Israel-local); we use June 13 local. CRS's account of the conflict is retrospective. No contemporary reporting links any rice, sugar, cotton, coffee, palm oil, cattle, lumber, copper, orange juice, rubber, platinum, vanilla or cocoa price move to this event — absence of evidence, not evidence of absence.

A fertilizer-cost shock with a one-day grain risk-premium flicker — not an ag-price event. The grain bounce was short-covering, not fundamental repricing: no physical supply was ever at risk, stocks were ample, and funds were heavily short. The honest lesson for our commodities: in June 2025 wheat, corn, soybeans, rice and coffee all fell as May→Jul month-end snapshots — windows broader than the June 13–24 event, so snapshots rather than event-window measures — and only palm oil ticked up modestly. Do not label this a bullish wheat, corn or soy event — the price series confirms the fade.