In global affairs, the Covid-19 virus makes all countries, powers and individuals equal in one dimension: none is immune to or spared from contamination. In an open and interdependent world, we are all exposed to global sanitary and environmental degradations. Russia is no exception: it has gone into lockdown, with increasing economic and social costs adding up to the fall in oil and gas prices and upcoming impacts of the global recession.

The 14 July 2015 Vienna agreement on Iran’s nuclear activities (Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action – JCPoA) was a game changer on the geopolitics in the Middle East and for the oil market. The oil sanctions were lifted and Iran increased significantly its production and exports. On 8 May 2018, President Trump announced that the United Stated (US) would withdraw from the agreement. Financial sanctions were reintroduced. From 5 November 2018 onwards, further sanctions will be re-imposed more specifically on petroleum related transactions, including the purchase of petroleum, petroleum products and petrochemical products. What could be the impact of this new embargo? Is there a risk of a new oil supply and price shock?

Since 2010, the United States has been undergoing a second shale revolution with the very rapid development of Light Tight Oil (LTO) or shale oil, following the revolution in shale gas. This development has allowed the production of oil and liquids to increase, so that the US is the world’s largest producer today, ahead of Saudi Arabia and Russia.

-by building dissonance within. Some like to remember fondly the call by Ronald Reagan for Gorbachev “to tear down this wall”. The United States “Won the Cold War” said George Bush Senior in his State of the Union Address. We need to step back and recognize with some humility that the Soviet Union fell largely of its own weight rather than as a result of external pressure. Again today Russia is economically weak. It has become an exporter of raw materials, its industrial sector is weak, and its revenues are already falling. Conditions now offer the opportunity to aggravate Russia’s economic frailty – let’s focus on that.

Poll numbers are the life blood of politics these days. Anything expressed in digits has a claim to truth that assertions without digits cannot make. They inspire confidence - especially among those aspiring to public office - that they actually understand what public sentiment is. If you lived between nuclear-armed Israel and Pakistan and had as many world class enemies as Iran has accumulated - would you give up your pursuit of a nuclear weapon?

The US shale gas revolution has shaken global gas markets. The US is on the eve of becoming self-sufficient in natural gas (and oil), thanks to the massive discoveries of unconventional resources on their territory, while being able to export part of their production. These developments have been closely watched by traditional oil and gas producers.