Oil markets have reacted with textbook relief to the announcement of a two-week ceasefire between the United States and Iran — and have likely overreached. Brent’s sharp sell-off — shedding more than $15/barrel within hours of the announcement — reflects a market eager to price out risk before the underlying conditions have meaningfully changed, Vandana Hari explains in her latest column for Energy Connects.
The war unfolding in the Middle East for a fourth day has spiralled far beyond a US-Israel-Iran confrontation. Gulf states are now directly exposed. The global economy is entangled. And the longer oil flows from the Middle East remain under threat, the greater the risk that crude surges into triple digits, inflation resurges and recession fears harden, writes Vandana Hari in her latest column.
The first three weeks of 2026 have delivered a sharp reminder that geopolitics, not balances alone, will set the tone for oil markets this year. The capture of Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, US President Donald Trump’s explicit threat of military action against Iran, and Washington’s revived push to acquire Greenland - now spilling into trade tensions with Europe - have together reinforced a core reality for traders and policymakers alike: supply uncertainty is back front-and-centre, even as prices appear deceptively calm.
In her exclusive monthly column, Vandana Hari analyses why the regime change in Venezuela signals a major restructuring of global energy flows - even though current oil prices remain stable. Washington’s control over Venezuela’s heavy crude and debt repayment creates significant leverage, potentially displacing Canadian exports, impacting OPEC relations, and heightening risks for major creditors like China and Russia.
A curious dynamic has taken hold of the oil market: many stakeholders are on the edge of their seats, awaiting a widely predicted glut. The usual overhang signals – the forward curve in a contango, softer spot differentials for physical barrels, and rising onshore and floating inventories, have been faint to mixed, fuelling debate and confusion.
In her exclusive monthly column, Vandana Hari, Founder and CEO of Vanda Insights, unpacks the record 610,000 b/d gap between OPEC and IEA’s 2025 oil demand growth forecasts, with OPEC projecting stronger consumption and tighter balances, while the IEA anticipates weaker emerging market demand, higher non-OPEC supply, and prolonged oversupply, leaving market participants without a clear consensus.
Rather than refining and reinforcing the existing sanctions regime, the European Union's latest sanctions package on Russia has opted to layer on complexity without coherence. The new measures appear untethered from the practicalities of enforcement or the realities of global energy trade, writes Vandana Hari in her latest column.
The outbreak of aerial warfare between Israel and Iran since June 13 and the resulting surge in crude’s risk premium is a stark reminder that no matter how carefully and dynamically market stakeholders calibrate global oil supply and demand fundamentals, geopolitical flashpoints can erupt without warning to upend all assumptions and strategies, writes Vandana Hari in her exclusive column for Energy Connects
Much ink has been spilled in dissecting the OPEC/non-OPEC alliance’s unexpected decision to accelerate the phaseout of its production cuts through May and June, which heaped more pressure on crude prices already reeling from a worsening global economic outlook. But a lot of the analysis misses the mark as it assumes one-dimensional objectives of the group and retrofits the prognosis to a pre-ordained narrative of imminent collapse, writes Vandana Hari
The OPEC/non-OPEC alliance made the right decision on March 3 to proceed with a gradual tapering of the 2.2 million b/d of collective production cuts by eight members from April, after having postponed the tapering thrice last year. Though the move may have added to the downward pressure on crude, the main reason for Brent futures crashing through $70/barrel, a floor the alliance would likely want to defend, was the tariff wars unleashed by US President Donald Trump against Canada, Mexico and China.
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