Frequently asked questions
Questions about how the site works, not about any one commodity — for those, see that commodity's own "Frequently asked questions" section.
- Why do a commodity's production and export figures sometimes look inconsistent?
- They come from different sources on different schedules: production from FAOSTAT, USGS or the Energy Institute; exports and imports from CEPII BACI. A country can be a top producer without being a top exporter if it consumes most of what it makes. See Methodology for exactly how each is computed.
- Why does a price on this site differ from what I see on an exchange right now?
- Prices here are monthly averages of a benchmark quote (the World Bank Pink Sheet, or the IMF Primary Commodity Price System where the Pink Sheet has no series), not a live feed. They lag the market and are not investment advice — see Methodology and the disclaimer.
- What does 'derived tables only' mean on the Sources page?
- Some upstream sources allow charts and statistics built from their data but not redistributing the raw rows. The site only publishes what each source's own license allows, and Sources marks the redistribution level for every one.
- How often is the data updated?
- A scheduled pipeline run refreshes the site roughly monthly. Data status shows the current vintage and check result for every source; if a source is unreachable on a given run, the previous snapshot is kept and the page says so rather than showing a guess.
- Why did a number change slightly since my last visit?
- Every figure carries the vintage (the date its source data was pulled) it was built from. A later pipeline run can shift a share or a total slightly when a source revises its own history, not because this site edited anything by hand. Data status shows the current vintage for every source.
- Can I use this data in my own project?
- Yes. Commodity Origins's derived tables and prose are CC BY 4.0 (attribution required); the underlying source rows keep their own license, listed per source on Sources. Developers has the JSON and CSV endpoints and a suggested citation format.
- Why doesn't a commodity have its own price chart?
- Only commodities tracked by an organized benchmark market get a price series (Tier 1 or Tier 2 on Commodities). A commodity with no active benchmark market (Tier 3) shows production and trade only — inventing a price for it would break the site's rule that no number is ever typed by hand.
- How can I get notified when a price moves?
- The site has no email alerts, but it has three ways to watch without visiting daily: the price movers feed (RSS, benchmarks that moved 8% or more on the month), a per-commodity RSS feed on every commodity page, and an optional browser notification you can turn on from your own watchlist that checks for a 5%+ move whenever you have that page open.
- How do I cite a page or a figure from this site?
- See the citation format and example on Developers. Every page also has a machine-readable JSON or CSV twin with the same figures, source and vintage attached.
- Who publishes Commodity Origins?
- Commodity Origins is published by its author. See About for what the site is, and what it deliberately is not: a trading terminal, a forecasting service, or investment advice.