Powder keg year for geopolitics
Iran, Venezuela and North Korea are all potential flashpoints in 2018
The risk landscape in 2018 is being pulled in two competing directions: on one hand, global economic growth has been revised upwards for the best outlook since the global financial crisis. On the other, geopolitical competition is at its punchiest since the end of the Cold War, with material (if still modest) threats of both trade wars and real wars. This dynamic, explored in our RiskMap 2018 forecast, has been bullish for oil prices since mid-2017, but 2018 is far from a one-way bet. In terms of sheer physical fundamentals, the most obvious factor continues to be the predictable response by US shale drillers (and their bankers) to rising prices. Shale drilling activity continues to neatly l
Also in this section
27 February 2026
The assumption that oil markets will re-route and work around sanctions is being tested, and it is the physical infrastructure that is acting as the constraint
27 February 2026
The 25th WPC Energy Congress to take place in tandem as part of a coordinated week of high-level ministerial, institutional and industry engagements
26 February 2026
OPEC, upstream investors and refiners all face strategic shifts now the Asian behemoth is no longer the main engine of global oil demand growth
25 February 2026
Tech giants rather than oil majors could soon upend hydrocarbon markets, starting with North America
