🔹The Mirage of Decline
Oil’s obituary keeps getting rewritten. As of October 2025, crude prices hover near $60 a barrel, dragged down by oversupply and softening global demand. OPEC+ has opened the taps again, raising output to defend market share even as inventories swell. The International Energy Agency now forecasts a global surplus through 2026—an ironic twist in an era supposedly defined by scarcity.
Yet oil’s influence endures. Every data center, container ship, and EV battery plant still relies on hydrocarbons somewhere in the chain. Even the green transition depends on the fossil infrastructure it seeks to replace. The paradox isn’t that oil is booming—it’s that it remains indispensable while its economics erode.
🔹 Petrostates Under Pressure
Energy exporters are adapting to a lower-margin world. Saudi Arabia is tightening fiscal policy and pouring billions into downstream petrochemicals and renewables. Russia, under sanctions, continues to sell crude through a growing “shadow fleet” of tankers routed to Asia. The United States, despite its climate commitments, has become the world’s largest exporter of LNG—its own energy dominance now at odds with its decarbonization agenda.
But resilience has a cost. For many petrostates, fiscal break-even prices remain well above current market levels. The geopolitical premium that once lifted oil prices is fading faster than their dependence on it.
Energy as Power, Not Price
The geopolitics of oil are shifting from markets to strategy. China and India are locking in long-term supply contracts; the BRICS bloc is testing oil-denominated trade outside the dollar system; Europe is stockpiling gas for winter as renewables falter under volatility. Control of energy flows—whether through pipelines, tankers, or contracts—remains the currency of influence.
The Long Dusk of Carbon Capitalism
Oil’s era isn’t over—it’s evolving. Prices may sag, but the strategic weight of hydrocarbons persists. Petrostates will endure turbulence, investors will chase volatility, and policymakers will preach transition while hedging with fossil reality. The energy system is transforming, but not replacing itself.
The twilight of carbon capitalism will not arrive with collapse—it will fade slowly, barrel by barrel, into the next global order.
