We know what’s coming and we are prepared.
📝 🛢 📈 Oil prices will rise to at least $140 per barrel by June if the Strait of Hormuz is not reopened by July, and will not return to pre-Iran War levels before 2028 even in a best-case scenario, predicts Goldman Sachs. It warns of price surges and major economic impacts.
The Iran War is predicted by Goldman to permanently add at least $9 to the cost of a barrel of oil – equivalent to an extra 20 cents per gallon for gasoline in the US, or 5 cents/pence per litre for petrol in the EU and UK. This is forecast to persist for years.
Goldman warns that the full economic impact is likely underappreciated given refined product shortages, record inventory draws, and the potential for non-linear price responses. It notes a record gap between crude and fuel prices, highlighting the likely economic pain.
It forecasts a large amount of demand destruction, particularly in the regions most exposed – the Middle East, South Korea, Japan, and Africa – but warns that even sharper demand losses could be required if the shock persists, which would imply deeper economic damage.
Markets have not yet caught up with this reality. As Trafigura Group Chief Economist Saad Rahim, has said, "The scale seems to be something where the market can’t actually get its head around it, so there is the real disconnect between perception and reality right now."
📎 ChrisO_wiki
Miatta Fanbulleh is Liberian.
She is now in charge of Britain's Energy Security.
Meanwhile this is what Liberia looks like:
Beaches covered in excrement.
No waste management.
Absolute filth.
🇪🇺🛢 Another Critical Oil Waterway Is About to Close
With apologies to Oscar Wilde, to lose one critical waterway may be regarded as misfortune; to lose two looks like carelessness. Of course, we’re long past carelessness and are now barreling toward disaster, with three already lost (the Strait of Hormuz, the Black Sea ports and the Red Sea’s Bab el-Mandeb) and a fourth poised to join their ranks: the mighty Rhine.
The river, which stretches across northwest Europe, doesn’t have the geopolitical pedigree of some of the other waterways in the headlines lately. But it’s similarly essential, acting as a conveyor belt that connects chemical plants, oil refineries, steel foundries, coal-fired power stations and other manufacturing sites across Switzerland, Germany and France with the Dutch ports. BASF SE, the German chemical behemoth, describes its importance in hyperbolic terms: “Without the Rhine, industrial production in western Europe would collapse.”
The river is one of ...
⚡️🇺🇸🇮🇷 US CENTCOM:
At 5:45 p.m. ET today, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps forces launched multiple ballistic missiles from Iran in an attempted surprise attack on U.S. forces based in the Middle East. All Iranian missiles were successfully intercepted. U.S. forces remain vigilant and at a high state of readiness.
@wfwitness
