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In this research piece, we outline the range of factors impacting the oil market’s performance this past year and discuss what 2026 may bring.

Various factors have been behind the sharp sell-off in crude prices over the past two months, including the impact US trade tariffs may have on global economic growth. In this note, we discuss these key drivers well as some potentially more supportive factors such as rising geopolitical risks.

This past year has been another rather mixed one for crude prices, with geopolitical risks and OPEC+ cuts providing support, whilst ongoing uncertainty on the outlook for global demand especially with China’s economic recovery continuing to look tepid at best, combined with a strong US dollar has kept the upside limited too. In this piece we briefly summarize the current state of the oil market and what may lie ahead in 2025 and beyond.

Oil prices had a mixed performance during the first half of this year, as traders attempted to digest various factors including geopolitical risks, OPEC+ actions, US output, a strong US dollar and demand uncertainty. In this note we analyze the current state of the crude market and its near-term outlook.

The US midterm elections are now less than one week away and although they do not involve the Presidency directly, they will have an effect on the direction of the country as well as influencing the playing field for the 2024 general election. Historically the party of the incumbent in the White House usually loses seats to the opposition in Congress at this halfway point of their term, but will this trend repeat itself in 2022? In this piece we take a look at the current polling statistics and discuss the potential outcome.

Our latest update on Egypt in which we recap some its major economic achievements since 2016 and consider the new challenges it now faces.

The lingering impact of COVID-19 continues to disrupt supply logistics which, combined with climate change and more recently the Ukraine crisis, has led to record energy and food prices. In this attached note ‘Food Insecurity & Political Risks’ we outline the scale of this problem and why it poses a serious risk to socio-economic and political stability around the globe.

The greatest health crisis that the world has faced since 1918 severely disrupted everyone’s lives as well as the global economy in 2020/21. Admittedly this crisis is not over yet and it remains a key risk in 2022, but there are hopeful signs that it is now moving towards becoming an epidemic rather than a pandemic. Looking at the year ahead there are several other more man-made concerns to bear in mind and in this piece we try to highlight some of these.

As the old-world order continues to fade and a far more polarized one appears to be taking its place, in this piece attached we discuss five of the major risks facing us in the year ahead. While US-China relations and Climate Change, which were listed in our ‘Key Risks for 2023’ publication feature again, we also discuss a few additional challenges to focus on in 2024.

In this piece, we have tried to briefly outline the serious risks that climate change poses to our planet. However, the transition to cleaner energy also needs to be well-planned and stable, otherwise it could put humanity at an even greater risk in the near term. Therefore whilst acknowledging the fact that climate change is a real and present danger, we also suggest that that the world will need certain fossil fuels such as oil and gas for some time to come in order to manage this energy transition correctly.

The UAE has been a pioneer in planning and implementing a clean energy program within the hydrocarbons industry, a journey that began over 16 years ago. In this piece, we look at the UAE’s various achievements in this area so far and its long-term plans to achieve net zero.

As the next general election in Angola approaches, we take a fresh look at the current state of the nation and whether any progress has been made in recent years to diversify the economy away from its decades long and heavy reliance on crude oil.

In this publication, we discuss the latest developments in the oil market and review the outcome of the recent OPEC+ meeting.

In this publication, we consider the risk COVID-19 still poses to the world and list a number of other potential geopolitical risks to keep an eye on this year