Daily Oil Fundamentals

Duplicitous Headlines

16 Apr 2026

Duplicitous Headlines

Harvey Dent is a fictional character from the world of DC Comics with a nickname of ‘Two-Face’. He is a tragic figure, burdened with a good-looking half of a face, one which seems to represent truth and decency, while the other is scarred, burned with acid and has a personality of an insane criminal. Do not headline and political statements feel as if we are dealing with our own ‘Two-Face’ every day? Yesterday a shouty headline, and sourced to AP, said that the US and Iran had agreed in principle on extended the current truce. Twenty minutes later, and sourced from Axios, a complete counter-headline said the US had not agreed to any extension.

Daily Oil Fundamentals

War or Peace

15 Apr 2026

War or Peace

All it took was another announcement by the US President, this time in an interview with the New York Post, that talks between his country and Iran might resume in the immediate future, and markets reacted obediently. Oil was sold off, casually ignoring the fact that traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains significantly below pre-war levels (10.1 mbpd was lost in March, according to the IEA), and that the US will allow the Iranian oil waiver to expire.

Daily Oil Fundamentals

An Eerie Equilibrium

14 Apr 2026

An Eerie Equilibrium

It has become a modern phenomenon, exampled in recent years by the wars in Ukraine, Gaza and now Iran, that markets after weeks and sometimes months of having nerves frayed, end up in entering a state of desensitisation. The wobbly US/Iranian ceasefire is allowing a certain amount of navel-gazing, and it turns out that any glance into unseemly depths is occluded by fluff. This is also brought about by a lack of trust in anything coming from either the US or Iran.