Early starts over the past few days here have brought with them a most spectacular view of the city's Tahiri Atakoy Kulesi monument, the Baruthane Millet park, and, of course, tankers and bulk carriers in the Sea of Marmara.
Many of these are anchored waiting to cross the Bosphorus Strait, a narrow natural strait and an internationally significant waterway straddled by the sprawling city of Istanbul. The Bosphorus connects the Sea of Marmara to Black Sea and forms one of the continental boundaries between Asia and Europe, and a key crude maritime artery for the oil industry.
It makes for a fitting place to discuss the direction of travel of the currently rocky oil prices, more so on a day when OPEC+ decided to hold fire on production and Russian shadow fleet tankers were attacked in the Black Sea overnight! Despite our fraught world and heightened levels of geopolitical tension, yours truly told the event there remains little to be bullish about the oil price.
Regardless of what OPEC+ does (or doesn't) non-OPEC oil production growth alone can meet demand growth levels forecast for 2026.
And those hedged US shale barrels are not going away anytime soon, to be read as at least Q4 2026. Additionally, crude demand remains less than certain as has been variously documented. Oil remains as much a story of demand as it is of supply.
Let's see where this goes. But to underscore the current market dynamic, none of the (physical) traders the Oilholic met in Istanbul reported any sort of difficulty in securing any sort of crude grade per their respective solver models.
This trend has become entrenched in the global refining and petrochemical complex. But first the figures.
Various data aggregators, market commentators and forecasters have examined the state of the world's refining complex, and what it is going to be in 10 years time. Between them, the likes of Kpler, Wood Mackenzie, S&P Global Platts, and more, have examined around 500 global refineries that they think might be at risk of closure within 10 years.
Some of the most obvious risk factors include demand shifts due to electric mobility, pressures on net cash margins, policy shifts, input and carbon compliance costs and competition. Of these 500, a fifth, or around a 100, were found to be at risk closure with more than half of them in Europe. Data makes it the continent where the refining and petrochemicals sector is quite simply being decimated.
But as that happens, the refining complex from Turkey eastward appears to be coping well without having to contend with the just the sort of high energy and net zero compliance costs we see in Europe.
All of this is triggering significant, unmistakable shifts across the liquid bulk supply chain. To discuss this and more, yours truly was joined on a panel by Rosemary Griffin, OPEC+ Lead Reporter, S&P Global Platts, Sevil Arif, Senior Marketing Specialist at SOCAR Türkiye, Elif Binici Ersen, Energy Analyst at Kpler, and Sergey Ivanov, Executive Director at Marine Bunker Exchange (MABUX).
There was wide consensus on the panel that world is likely looking at testing the $60 per barrel floor fairly early in 2026, with some strength returning to the market later in the year.
On the refining side, we discussed the opportunities in the Eastern Mediterranean and further eastward, and challenges in Europe.
Much of dialogue acknowledged that Northern Europe’s refining sector is now at a critical juncture, faced with declining margins and policy pressures to adapt to a rapidly evolving continental compliance problems. And, quite frankly, it doesn't look too good, just as competition from Asia and the Middle East rises.
Well, that's all from Istanbul folks. My thanks and congratulations to the organisers - Confidence Information Services - the hosts of this wonderful event. More musings to follow soon. Keep reading, keep it here, keep it 'crude'!
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