Where the math is defensible.
Long-form research on live enterprise decisions. Publication is selective. Every number traces to a named source. No takes without evidence.
Iran 2026: Oil Exports Under Sanctions, China Shadow Flows, Fiscal Arithmetic
Tehran is exporting more crude than at any point since 2018, but the gap between gross barrels lifted and net dollars repatriated has rarely been wider. We map the shadow fleet, OFAC enforcement cycles, and three scenarios for 2026 to 2027.
Iran is shipping roughly 1.65 to 1.80 million barrels per day of crude and condensate in early 2026, almost all of it to Chinese independent refiners via a shadow fleet of 350 plus tankers using ship-to-ship transfers off Malaysia, Singapore, and increasingly the Sea of Oman. Discounts to Brent have widened from 8 dollars per barrel in 20...
Russia trade isolation 2026: where the sanctions math actually bites
Four years after the invasion, the headline restrictions look porous, but the second order effects on price realization, component quality, and capital costs are reshaping Russian industrial capacity in ways the trade data only partially captures.
Russia has rerouted roughly two thirds of its pre 2022 European trade through Asia, the Gulf, and a sprawling intermediation network running through Turkey, the UAE, and Central Asia. Headline volumes have largely recovered, yet the realized economics tell a different story. Crude discounts persist, the shadow fleet is aging into insuranc...