Yesterday, several media outlets published articles with headlines like: 'Oil reserves will run out in the world in a month', 'Due to the war in Iran, the global oil market has lost 1 billion barrels', and so on. This is the modern reality — the headline sells the news.
Moreover, in the era of 'shorts' and 'reels', information is condensed into one or two sentences, as by the third, most of the audience switches to another headline, says fuel expert Alexey Shvedov.
The good news for those who continue reading is that the reality is currently better than what the headlines describe. The global oil market has not yet lost 1 billion barrels due to the war in Iran; however, someone has already rushed to round the current assessment of the situation and the forecasts made by analysts at the FT Commodities Global Summit in Lausanne to a 'loud' figure.
A similar story applies to the out-of-context quote from Frederic Lasser of Gunvor. Therefore, global oil reserves are unlikely to run out in a month or even two.
However, this does not mean that there are no problems or tensions in the physical oil and petroleum products market. On the contrary, in several regions and in certain segments of petroleum products, the situation is quite serious.
The situation in the Middle East remains 'in the fog of war', so there is significant uncertainty in the oil and petroleum products markets. This uncertainty contributes to rising prices. Rising prices, in turn, exacerbate inequality and lead to shortages. And thus, trading on fear will continue.
