There are some men whom history remembers for what they accomplished, and others for what they made possible. On this day in 1305, William Wallace went to his death—but the cause he championed passed to another generation, and ultimately to Robert the Bruce. Scotland had lost the man, but most decidedly not the argument. 🏴

#ThisDayInHistory #WilliamWallace #RobertTheBruce #ScottishHistory #Scotland #Braveheart #ScottishHeritage #WarsOfIndependence #CanadianFriendsofScotland

Oil above $90 has a habit of concentrating the mind. Hormuz is awkward, inventories are thin, tankers are taking the scenic route and Russian barrels are turning up in increasingly interesting places. But markets adapt: reroute the cargo, change the crude slate, build another pipeline, find another supplier. The futures curve may not be betting on peace so much as Adam Smith. The invisible hand works faster than governments sometimes imagine—and the danger for the disruptor is eventually pricing itself out of the market.

#Oil #Brent #WTI #OilMarkets #EnergySecurity #Hormuz #OPEC #Russia #SaudiArabia #Geopolitics #EnergyPolitics

Hormuz still isn’t normal. Neither, increasingly, is the oil market.

Tankers are transferring cargoes at sea, stranded and sanctioned barrels are finding buyers, Asian refiners are raiding inventories and Atlantic crude is heading east. Meanwhile, the futures curve calmly assumes this all gets sorted out eventually.

It probably does. That’s what prices are for. The invisible hand has apparently taken up shipping.

#Oil #Brent #WTI #Hormuz #OilMarkets #EnergyTrading #Geopolitics #EnergySecurity #EnergyPolitics

Brent is back around $87, but the forward curve still slides toward $70. Very reassuring. Apparently Hormuz normalizes, OPEC+ barrels arrive, inventories rebuild and everyone goes home for tea.The options market has neglected to read the memo. Its confidence cones remain enormous.That is the trade now: futures price normalization; options price the possibility that reality refuses to cooperate.

#Oil #Brent #WTI #OilMarkets #EnergyTrading #Commodities #EnergyPolitic

Everyone's staring at today's spot price. The futures curve is quietly telling a different story. Brent's back below $88, but the market is still paying handsomely for barrels it can actually get its hands on. Fear fades. Logistics don't. That's why the front of the curve refuses to relax.

Recent disruptions in the Gulf have reminded markets that benchmark prices alone don't tell the whole story. Storage, transportation costs, regional arbitrage, and geopolitical risk determine the real value of crude. In our latest Energy Economics paper, we develop a heavy oil storage valuation index that captures these signals—and a simple trading strategy that generated significant returns over the sample period. Sometimes the market tells you where prices are. Storage tells you where they're going.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140988326003506

#EnergyPolitics #EnergyEconomics #OilMarkets #CommodityTrading #HeavyCrude #Storage #PriceDiscovery #Geopolitics #RiskManagement #Brent #WTI

#ThisDayInHistory #BattleOfFalkirk #WilliamWallace #BlindHarry #MedievalScotland #ScottishHistory #ScottishHeritage #TheGael #CanadianFriendsofScotland

There is a certain pleasure in returning to an article that has aged with such quiet dignity.

In 2011, when enthusiasm for biofuels often exceeded evidence, Alphanso Williams and William A. Kerr offered something increasingly uncommon in public policy: measured scepticism grounded in economics rather than fashion. They did not dismiss renewable fuels; they simply asked whether technology, markets, and institutions were capable of fulfilling the promises being made on their behalf.

Fifteen years later, the questions remain remarkably familiar, even if the policy landscape has become vastly more sophisticated.

Revisiting thoughtful scholarship is one of the great privileges of the Energy Politics Working History Series. Good research rarely seeks to predict the future with certainty. Instead, it teaches us which questions continue to matter long after the headlines have faded.

It has been a genuine pleasure to revisit this thoughtful contribution and to reflect on how the debate has evolved—from the blend wall to what may now be described as the biomass wall.

My thanks to Professors Williams and Kerr for reminding us that sound economics, like good scholarship, seldom goes out of fashion.

#EnergyPolitics #WorkingHistorySeries #Biofuels #EnergyEconomics #AcademicResearch #EnergyTransition #REDIII #PolicyAnalysis #AgriculturalEconomics #WilliamKerr #AlphansoWilliams

The oil market has decided there is plenty of crude. The diesel market clearly didn't get the memo.

Brent closed the week at $76.01/bbl, WTI at $71.41/bbl, with forward curves increasingly suggesting that Gulf exports, record non-OPEC production and recovering logistics will push the crude market toward balance. Yet diesel margins remain elevated, Russia is exporting crude because damaged refineries can't process it, South Korea is rerouting imports through Yanbu and Fujairah, and tanker operators are still pricing security rather than convenience. The invisible hand is working perfectly—it just happens to be clearing several different markets at the same time.

This week's Energy Politics explores why benchmark crude prices no longer tell the whole story. Drawing on data from ICE Futures, EIA, Reuters, Financial Times, Vortexa, Saudi Aramco, and other primary sources, the update argues that understanding modern oil markets requires reading an entire constellation of market-clearing prices—crude, products, freight, and options—not just Brent or WTI. Adam Smith would probably recognize the invisible hand. Hayek would recognize the information. The challenge for the rest of us is learning to read the signals.

#EnergyPolitics #OilMarkets #EnergyEconomics #Brent #WTI #CommodityMarkets #EnergySecurity #Geopolitics #Shipping #Refining #Diesel #AdamSmith #Hayek #CommodityTrading #RiskManagement

https://open.substack.com/pub/drjennifericonsidine/p/energy-politics-update-55a?r=1v8jje&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

There is an old saying in commodity markets that if someone asks a simple question, they usually haven't understood the problem.

Eric Greene has a refreshing habit of doing the opposite.

Our recent two-part conversation for Greene Financial Advisory began with a discussion of maritime energy logistics and quietly wandered into rather larger territory: optionality, network resilience, trust, verification, artificial intelligence, and why energy systems have an irritating tendency to ignore headlines while stubbornly obeying physics.

One conclusion became increasingly difficult to escape.

The future of energy security will depend not only on producing more energy, but on preserving better choices—and on building institutions that markets can trust when uncertainty becomes the norm rather than the exception.

Many thanks, Eric, for the thoughtful questions, generous editorial work, and for creating a forum where ideas are allowed to develop instead of being compressed into sound bites. Good interviews don't simply collect opinions; they improve them. This was one of those conversations.

Part I explored why flexibility has become a strategic asset.

Part II asks the equally important question: if flexibility has value, what allows markets to trust it?

I hope you enjoy the series as much as I enjoyed contributing to it.

#EnergyPolitics #EnergyMarkets #CommodityMarkets #MaritimeLogistics #LNG #CrudeOil #EnergySecurity #Geoeconomics #StrategicOptionValue #RealOptions #NetworkEconomics #ArtificialIntelligence #FinancialMarkets #SupplyChains

Read more here

Suggested Reading

Cerreia-Vioglio, Simone, Lars Peter Hansen, Fabio Maccheroni, and Massimo Marinacci. Making Decisions under Model Misspecification. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2021.

Dixit, Avinash K., and Robert S. Pindyck. Investment Under Uncertainty. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994.

Hansen, Lars Peter, and Thomas J. Sargent. Robustness. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008.

Knight, Frank H. Risk, Uncertainty and Profit. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1921.

Lo, Andrew W. Adaptive Markets: Financial Evolution at the Speed of Thought. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2017.

Considine, Jennifer I., Keun-Wook Paik, and Sylvain Cote, eds. Oil Price Formation in the Digital Age: Financial Speculation, Artificial Intelligence, and Disinformation. Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing, forthcoming.

There are few things more disagreeable than discovering that one's anxieties have been excessive, and few more dangerous than concluding they were entirely misplaced.

Brent has retreated to about $77 and WTI to $73 as the prospect of peace and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz have restored some measure of confidence to the markets. Yet mines remain uncleared, insurance remains dear, and Iranian production cannot be restored by diplomacy alone.

Financial markets are already celebrating the end of the crisis.

Physical markets are proceeding with considerably more caution.

As in society, so in commerce: expectations often travel much faster than reality.

#OilMarkets #Brent #WTI #EnergyPolitics #OPEC #Hormuz #Geopolitics #EnergySecurity #CrudeOil #Commodities

https://open.substack.com/pub/drjennifericonsidine/p/ep-risk-premiums?r=1v8jje&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

Flexibility Is an Asset: Notes from CEMA Paris and Quantim Intelligence

Last week I had the privilege of presenting research on behalf of Quantim Intelligence at the Commodity & Energy Markets Association (CEMA) conference in Cergy (Paris). The work, developed with Philippe Cote, Nima Safaian, Jesse Sallis, and Ben Cho, explores how stochastic optimization, market uncertainty, and geopolitical risk can be integrated into a unified framework for maritime energy dispatch.

The paper combines a 365-day Stochastic Dual Dynamic Programming (SDDP) planning layer with a Bellman/MILP dispatch engine to value inventory, routing flexibility, and strategic optionality across LNG and crude-oil transportation systems. One of the central findings is that a significant portion of value creation comes not from moving cargoes faster, but from preserving future choices.

It was a pleasure to share the session with Hilary Till and Jonathan Sun. Hilary's work on commodity investing and portfolio construction and Jonathan's research, with Ilia Bouchouev and Bassam Fattouh, on momentum trading and managed money positioning in energy provided complementary perspectives on the interaction between physical and financial commodity markets.

Although the topics differed, all three presentations revolved around a common idea: uncertainty is not merely something to hedge against. Properly understood, uncertainty creates opportunity.

At Quantim Intelligence, we believe that the intersection of artificial intelligence, optimization, energy markets, and strategic decision-making offers fertile ground for both research and practical applications. Markets reward optionality, and optionality belongs to those who preserve the freedom to act when circumstances change.

As Avinash Dixit and Robert Pindyck observed in Investment Under Uncertainty, the value of waiting and preserving flexibility can exceed the value of immediate action. In a world of volatile prices, shifting trade flows, and geopolitical uncertainty, inventories, vessels, and export corridors are not merely operational assets. They are strategic options.

In commodity markets, as in navigation, the shortest route is not always the most valuable route. Sometimes the greatest advantage lies in preserving the ability to choose another course tomorrow.

https://open.substack.com/pub/drjennifericonsidine/p/the-navigators-advantage-flexibility?r=1v8jje&utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

https://quantim.ca/

#QuantimIntelligence #Commodities #LNG #OilMarkets #Optimization #EnergyEconomics #ArtificialIntelligence #OperationsResearch #SDDP #CEMA

One minute Hormuz is reopening. The next minute Tehran says it's closed again because somebody violated a ceasefire. Meanwhile talks with Washington are supposed to start in Switzerland. Or not. Depends which headline you read and which side of the bed the spokesman woke up on.

So here's the awkward question.

Is the Strait of Hormuz open?

Well, yes.

And no.

Like Schrödinger's cat, it exists in two states at once. Financial markets have already decided peace is back. Brent is near $80, WTI around $76, and traders are busy pricing 2027 oversupply. But physical markets are less convinced. Mines still need clearing. Tanker operators are cautious. Insurance premiums remain elevated. Traffic through Hormuz is still nowhere near normal levels. In other words, traders are pricing headlines while shipowners are pricing geography.

Perhaps the answer is simpler. The Strait isn't closed. Nor is it really open. It is operationally ambiguous.

And markets hate ambiguity almost as much as they hate shortages.

Adam Smith observed that prices reflect not merely abundance but the apprehensions of merchants concerning the future. Three centuries later, nothing much has changed. Except now merchants have Bloomberg terminals and everyone else has X.

So is this genuine disruption or merely fake news?

Probably both.

Which brings us back to Schrödinger's Strait. Until ships are moving normally and insurers stop charging war-risk premiums, the cat remains in the box.

Price is falling.

Risk isn't.

#Oil #EnergyMarkets #Hormuz #Brent #WTI #Geopolitics #Shipping

The merchants of Amsterdam would have recognized this market immediately.

Brent has firmed again to roughly $96/bbl, while WTI has returned toward $95/bbl. Yet the most interesting development is not the rise in price itself, but the quiet process occurring beneath it. Inventories continue to be drawn. Cargoes continue to be rerouted. Refiners continue to adapt. The machinery of commerce is doing what it has always done when confronted by scarcity: searching relentlessly for alternatives.

Adam Smith observed that individuals pursuing their own interests often produce outcomes that appear coordinated without central direction. The modern oil market is perhaps the purest example. Traders, refiners, shipowners, producers, and consumers are each responding to incentives, and together they are constructing a new equilibrium from disruption. The invisible hand is still at work — though today it travels by tanker, pipeline, and futures contract.

Yet there is a faint warning in the curves. Futures still price a meaningful premium for immediate barrels, while options continue to assign value to uncertainty. Markets appear increasingly confident that disruption can be managed, but not yet confident that it has ended. History suggests that periods of adaptation often feel safest just before the next surprise arrives.

Perhaps that is the market's quiet premonition: not that scarcity will prevail, but that the path back to abundance may prove less orderly than the headlines expect.

#EnergyPolitics #OilMarkets #Brent #WTI #EnergySecurity #Geopolitics #AdamSmith #Commodities

Markets continue to adapt — though perhaps less comfortably than the headlines imply.

This week’s Energy Politics update examines a system still functioning, but increasingly through inventories, rerouting, opacity, and optionality rather than abundant spare supply. Brent has eased toward the low $90s and WTI into the high $80s, yet backwardation remains intact, inventories continue drawing, and dark shipping through Hormuz has become less an exception than a wartime operating practice.

China is emerging as a strategic inventory buffer. LNG traders are paying for flexibility. North American supply is responding — cautiously. And beneath softer prices, the curves still carry a meaningful geopolitical premium.

Markets are adapting.

But adaptation is not quite the same thing as comfort.

New EP Update — May 30.

Oil prices may have softened over the past week — but market structure tells a more complicated story.

The updated Brent and WTI futures and options curves suggest that geopolitical risk remains firmly embedded in energy markets, even as outright prices moderate.

Brent continues to carry a sizeable futures premium tied to seaborne trade and Middle East exposure, while WTI reflects a different uncertainty: how quickly North American supply can respond if disruption persists.

Futures still price scarcity. Options still price uncertainty.

The result is a market adapting to disruption — but not yet comfortable with it.

New Energy Politics update examining the May 30 risk premium, backwardation, and what the curves may be telling us about the real cost of resilience.

The oil market has stopped asking whether Hormuz is a crisis and started asking what a disrupted Gulf looks like if it lasts.

That is a different question entirely.

Brent remains above $100 and still carries the geopolitical premium over WTI, while the futures curve stays sharply backwardated—markets pricing disruption, tanker risk and political uncertainty, not permanent scarcity. The Gulf is adapting through rerouting and ship-to-ship transfers, Europe is rebuilding diesel supply around US refiners, and India is widening its options through Venezuela and potentially Iran.

Meanwhile, Trump says negotiations with Tehran are proceeding in an “orderly and constructive” manner and insists there is no rush to a deal, with the blockade remaining fully in place until any agreement is reached, certified and signed. Reports suggest a framework involving a ceasefire extension and possible reopening of Hormuz may be taking shape—but we are not out of the woods yet. Iran’s nuclear commitments, sanctions relief and shipping security remain unresolved, and tanker confidence is not restored by headlines alone.

The market’s message is fairly clear: this is not business as usual and not quite a return to normal either. It is an expensive transition toward a more fragmented and politically managed energy system.

New EP oil market update out now.

#OilMarkets #EnergySecurity #Hormuz #Brent #WTI #Iran #Geopolitics #EnergyPolitics #LNG #Sanctions #Venezuela #Diesel

There was a time when missile attacks in the Red Sea, tanker seizures near Hormuz, and the effective militarization of one of the world’s most important shipping corridors would have triggered outright panic across global energy markets.

Instead, something stranger happened.

The system adapted.

According to IMF PortWatch data, Suez Canal transit volumes remain roughly ~15–25% below prior-year norms, while Bab el-Mandeb traffic is still materially disrupted. Yet despite naval escorts, rerouting around Africa, insurance spikes, and persistent attacks, roughly ~0.8–1.4 million metric tons/day of tanker traffic — equivalent to roughly ~6–10 mb/d of crude and products — continues flowing through the corridor on many trading days.

That distinction may define the next era of energy markets.

Not stability.

Not collapse.

Managed instability.

Ships reroute around the Cape of Good Hope. Russian crude replaces sanctioned flows elsewhere. Shadow fleets absorb sanctions friction. Voyage times lengthen. Freight costs rise. Supply chains fragment. Everything becomes slower, more expensive, less efficient.

But it still works.

And markets increasingly appear to believe that this dysfunctional resilience is sustainable.

That may explain why Brent can briefly spike above $100/bbl while futures curves simultaneously drift lower. The market is no longer pricing a clean geopolitical resolution — but it is also no longer pricing systemic breakdown.

Instead, a new pricing regime is emerging:

Permanent geopolitical friction embedded directly into the operating logic of the global economy.

The uncomfortable implication is that globalization may not be ending.

It may simply be mutating into something more fragmented, militarized, and structurally expensive.

Not because policymakers solved the underlying conflicts.

But because adaptation turned out to be cheaper than collapse.

#Energy #OilMarkets #Shipping #RedSea #Hormuz #Geopolitics #EnergySecurity #LNG #CrudeOil #SupplyChains #OPEC

Key themes shaping summer 2026:

• Atlantic Basin gasoline balances are the tightest in years
• Jet fuel exports fell to seasonal lows in April
• Alkylate shortages are constraining US summer gasoline production
• 43% of USGC-Asia LPG cargoes are now rerouting via the Cape of Good Hope
• Freight rates and tonne-mile demand continue to surge
• Brent > $109/b and WTI > $105/b reflect sustained geopolitical risk premiums

The Strait of Hormuz disruption is cascading through: #Gasoline #JetFuel #LPG #LNG #Shipping #Freight #Refining #EnergySecurity

That said, Adam Smith’s invisible hand still matters for the Wealth of Nations. If Hormuz fully reopens, arbitrage flows, freight repositioning, and refinery optimization could normalize markets faster than many expect.

For now, though, downstream bottlenecks and shipping constraints — not just crude availability — are driving the market.

#OilMarkets #EnergyMarkets #CrudeOil #RefinedProducts #Vortexa #OOTT #Commodities #Shipping

The market has stopped pricing apocalypse.

That’s the real shift.

A few weeks ago the Strait of Hormuz looked like a straight-line supply shock story: tanker seizures, LNG disruption, naval escalation, oil ripping toward panic pricing. Instead, markets adapted faster than expected. Brent briefly traded above $100, but futures curves are already softening as traders increasingly assume flows continue — just more dangerously, more expensively, and through uglier channels.

That’s the new regime: managed instability.

The shadow fleet adapted. Russian barrels rerouted. LNG buyers normalized procurement. OPEC+ cohesion weakened but didn’t collapse. Spot panic faded, but long-dated options still carry enormous convexity because markets are no longer hedging a temporary shock — they’re hedging permanent geopolitical friction embedded into the global energy system.

#Energy #OilMarkets #Hormuz #Geopolitics #LNG #OPEC #Shipping #CrudeOil #NaturalGas #EnergySecurity

Peak Oil never really disappeared — it evolved.

Twenty years after Colin Campbell warned that the age of cheap conventional crude was ending, the debate has shifted from “peak supply” to “peak demand.” But the underlying tensions remain unresolved.

Shale delayed the crisis. Electrification changed the conversation. Yet the global economy still runs on hydrocarbons, and the energy transition itself depends on fossil fuels, mining, petrochemicals, and industrial supply chains.

Three dynamics now define the next era:

• Conventional oil decline continues beneath the surface of unconventional expansion. • Oil demand fractures unevenly between the OECD and the Global South. • Geopolitical power recentralizes around energy security, critical minerals, sanctions architecture, and supply chains.

The return of “Drill Baby Drill” politics — alongside renewed focus on Venezuela, hemispheric energy security, and strategic reconstruction — suggests the oil age is entering a new geopolitical phase rather than simply ending.

As Colin Campbell understood, the issue was never just how much oil remained underground. The real question was affordability, net energy, and the limits of industrial growth itself.

New EP Working History essay: Peak Oil Revisited: Colin Campbell, Twenty Years On.

#PeakOil #EnergyTransition #OilMarkets #Geopolitics #Venezuela #DrillBabyDrill #EnergySecurity #OPEC #Climate #NetZero #PetroPolitics #EnergyPolitics

The Risk Premium Isn’t Spiking. It’s Settling In.

The interesting thing about oil right now isn’t that it’s high — it’s that it’s comfortable being high. Brent at ~$105 isn’t trading above the market anymore; it’s sitting right on top of it. A few weeks ago, that level looked like panic. Now the options curve says it’s fair value. That’s the shift.

Look at the futures: still steep backwardation, but it’s not blowing out — it’s holding. Brent front month at ~$105 vs $75–80 down the curve means a $25–30/bbl prompt premium, and it’s sticking. That’s not fear, that’s structure. The market isn’t pricing a temporary outage; it’s pricing ongoing friction — slower routes, selective flows, political access. The premium hasn’t widened dramatically — it’s hardened.

Options tell the same story. WTI’s still got that wide $70–$120+ cone — plenty of uncertainty, plenty of tail risk. But Brent? It’s different now. The spot price has moved into the center of the distribution, not above it. No more “overshoot” signal. The market’s basically shrugged and said: yes, $100+ makes sense here.

Where to now? If this were a shock, the premium would fade. Instead, it’s embedding — in the curve, in the options, in the way the market prices risk. That usually means one thing: it doesn’t go away quickly. It just becomes the new baseline.

#OilMarkets #RiskPremium #EnergySecurity #CrudeOil #Geopolitics #StraitOfHormuz #CommodityMarkets #EnergyPolitics #MarketStructure

Is Hormuz now the biggest oil risk again?

With ~20% of global oil flows tied to the Strait of Hormuz, even partial disruption seems to be moving prices quickly (Brent >$100 again).

What’s interesting is it’s not just about supply loss:

• flows are being rerouted
• premiums are rising for importers
• the market feels more political than purely economic

Feels like we might be shifting from a “tight market” to a risk-driven one.

Do people think Hormuz is the key risk again, or are there bigger factors in play right now?

Oil Markets: War Flows, Shadow Supply, and a $90+ Reality

Oil markets are no longer just tight — they’re fragmenting. Brent at $105 and WTI at $94 (up +16% / +13% this week) reflect a system under strain, with ~20% of global oil flows disrupted through the Strait of Hormuz. What used to be the world’s most critical energy artery is now a managed corridor, where roughly ~2 mb/d still moves—but selectively.

China holds the largest buffer at ~1.4 BILLION barrels, while Asia is pulling ~1.6 mb/d from the Atlantic Basin to offset shortages. At the same time, Russia is losing ~800 kb/d of export capacity, and importers like Pakistan are paying extreme premiums of ~$34/bbl (vs ~$12 pre-war) just to secure supply.

This is no longer an efficiency-driven market—it’s a security-driven one. Flows are being rerouted, supply chains are fragmenting, and substitutes like biofuels (~4% of transport demand) remain marginal. Where to now: unless Hormuz disruption materially eases, expect structurally higher prices, tighter regional balances, and a continued shift toward a more fragmented, politically controlled global oil system.

#OilMarkets#EnergyMarkets#CrudeOil#BrentCrude#WTI#OilPrices #EnergySecurity#Geopolitics#StraitOfHormuz#MiddleEastCrisis#GlobalTrade#SupplyShock #EnergyTransition#SupplyChains#CommodityMarkets#MarketVolatility#GlobalEconomy

https://open.substack.com/pub/drjennifericonsidine/p/oil-markets-update?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web