The Great Oil Split Has Begun || Peter Zeihan

Global oil markets are undergoing a structural fragmentation as transport disruptions dismantle the era of unitary energy pricing. Three primary factors drive this shift: the Iran-Israel conflict forcing Persian Gulf producers into inefficient ship-to-ship transfers, the Ukraine war rerouting Russian crude across vast distances, and a critical shortage of new tankers exacerbated by the aging "shadow fleet." These logistical hurdles effectively double the required tanker capacity, causing price spreads to widen dramatically. While North America maintains a functional price ceiling around $70 due to domestic supply and stranded Canadian and South American crudes, Europe and Northeast Asia face significantly higher costs—potentially double or triple—due to their lack of alternatives. This emerging tanker crisis, combined with the potential disappearance of half the world's globally traded crude from Russian and Iranian sources, marks the beginning of a volatile new energy paradigm expected to last two decades.