Post factum, London (2026)

20/08/2026

⚡️Ukraine has been striking Russian oil infrastructure with drones and missiles regularly since 2024.

In 2026, this expanded to Russian Black Sea grain shipments and e-commerce warehouses across the country.

The attacks reduced Russia’s oil refining capacity by around 30% and caused a country-wide shortage of fuels.

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17/08/2026

🔥Oil products are mostly fuels: 45% of all oil is turned into petrol (gasoline).

Another 25% makes diesel fuel, and around 10% — jet fuel (kerosene).

These fuels power most of the cars, trucks, tractors, planes and ships globally.

Also, 90% of basic materials used for making any chemicals come from crude oil.

These are needed for plastics, medicines, fertilisers and more.

• The world uses 100 million barrels of oil per day (1 barrel = 159 litres).

Crude oil needs to go through a complex and expensive refining process to make fuels or other products.

At its simplest, refining involves heating up the crude oil to separate different components that boil at different temperatures.

•This is called distillation and the products are called fractions.

Crude oil is extracted as a thick black liquid that is mostly a mix of hydrocarbons (molecules with different numbers of carbon and hydrogen atoms).

“Short” hydrocarbons (like butane) turn to gas easily, while “long” hydrocarbons (like asphalt) stay liquid even at high temperatures.

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03/08/2026

🔥Iran’s blockade of Hormuz closed an export route for around 20% of the world’s crude oil, half of it from Saudi Arabia.

Saudi Arabia has an oil pipeline designed for a situation like this, to move its oil from the east coast to the west, avoiding Hormuz.

The Yanbu oil pipeline has a maximum capacity of 7 million barrels per day.

From the Red Sea, the oil can be shipped south, through Bab el-Mandeb, or north through the Suez Canal.

Saudi Arabia sells 78% of its oil to Asia.

This oil needs to go south through Bab el-Mandeb, or go all the way around Africa after leaving through Suez.

Read more in our latest Pro report:

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19/07/2026

🔥Afghanistan is ruled by the Taliban, a militant group that enforces a strict interpretation of Islamic law.

Pakistan previously supported the Taliban:
• Backed its rise to power in the 1990s.
• Sheltered its leaders for 20 years after the US invasion of 2001.

Why? Pakistan wanted to have more regional influence, especially against India, and to have a friendly government in neighbouring Afghanistan.

What went wrong?

Check out our latest Pro report.

18/07/2026

🌾 Wheat ($55B): Russia leads exports (24%), and the Middle East and North Africa depend on imports. Ukraine, normally a major player, now exports less grain due to the war.

🍚 Rice ($33B): India sells 40% of exports, and its policies affect rice prices globally, as only 10% of the world’s rice output is traded.

🌽 Corn ($45B): the US, Brazil and Argentina sell 70% of exports; Mexico and East Asia buy the most.

🫘 Soybeans ($75B): Brazil sells 57% of exports and China buys 61% of imports, mostly for animal feed. China previously imported more from the US, which is a source of disputes.

Soybean meal ($28B): Argentina sells most of the processed soybean meal while the EU is the largest buyer. China mostly crushes its imported soybeans into meal locally.

Palm oil ($45B): Indonesia and Malaysia sell about 85% of exports; India and China buy the most.

Beef ($65B): Brazil is the top exporter (29%) and China the top importer (30%).

Dairy ($55B): New Zealand leads exports (27%), mostly milk powder; China is the largest buyer.

Poultry ($30B): Brazil and the US sell over half of exports to widely spread buyers.

🐟Fish and Seafood

Fish and seafood is the largest traded category, worth $186 billion in 2024, with over a third of output traded.

States have fishing rights up to 370 km from their coasts (exclusive economic zones), and the South China Sea disputes are partly over fishing rights.

China, Norway, Vietnam and Ecuador export the most; the US, the EU and Japan import the most.

Fish farming now slightly exceeds the share of open-water fishing, which has held steady in total volume since the 1990s.
China operates the world’s largest distant-water fishing fleet, up to 16,000 vessels mostly off the coasts of South America and Africa.

It accounts for over 50% of the global deep-sea squid catch, as well as a large share of Pacific tuna.

China’s distant-water fleet commits the most acts of illegal fishing globally and is linked with the use of forced labour, such as debt bo***ge of the workers at sea.

Everything you need to know: in our latest report.

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14/07/2026

🌽🔥 Fertiliser supports about half of global food production and must be applied every season.

It comes in 3 types: nitrogen (N), made from natural gas, and mined phosphate (P) and potash (K).

Russia is the largest exporter in this $103 billion market, and Morocco holds 70% of the world’s phosphate rock.

Canada, Russia and Belarus supply about 70% of traded potash.

Sanctions on Russia do not cover fertiliser, and Russian sales to Brazil, which imports 85% of its supply, grew after 2022. Sanctions on Belarusian fertiliser were eased, partly for diplomatic leverage against Canada.

Other chemicals are needed for farming too. For example, insect-killing pesticides, for which China produces around 70% of the components.

The production of seeds is another separate industry that affects the food market.

World Hunger

About 673 million people, 8% of humanity, were undernourished in 2024, and 2.3 billion had no reliable access to enough food.

Conflict was the main cause for 56% of the 266 million people in crisis-level hunger in 2025.

Extreme hunger (famine) was confirmed in both Sudan and Gaza in 2025, after blockades and sieges cut off food supplies.

Read more in our latest report, free and ad-free.

12/07/2026

🔥 Taking Down Drones:

Shooting down a $50,000 Shahed drone could cost up to $4 million, as producers race to make cheaper tools at scale.

- Missiles: a traditional air defence interceptor is fired at the drone as it would be at an enemy missile; this costs from $100k per shot to over $12m for advanced systems like US THAAD.

- Guided rockets: older and cheaper rockets are upgraded with laser guidance kits to be used accurately against drones at around $30,000 per shot.

- Regular guns: in practice, soldiers with machine guns and rifles, or anti-aircraft cannons, are used against slower drones; this is cheap but has minimal range.

- Interceptor drones: small and fast specialised drones are now used to take down attackers, mass-produced by Ukraine at $1,000-2,500; the most notable advancement of 2025-26.

- Lasers and microwaves: burning the drones out of the sky for the cost of the electricity used; Israel deployed the first laser air defence systems in 2025.

- Radars and scanners: to take down a drone, it must first be detected and identified, with defenders often facing combined drones+missiles attacks.

- Electronic warfare: this includes jamming and other ways of altering the drone’s control signals, affecting its electronic equipment or hacking it.

- Nets and roofs: the cheapest defence of all, physical covers over equipment, vehicles, trenches or entire roads, from metal roofing to anti-drone nets; effective against smaller drones.

Read more in our latest report: free and ad-free on our website.

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09/07/2026

🔥 How did drones change war?

• Cheap precision airstrikes: a $500 drone piloted remotely through a camera can now do what required a $50 million fighter jet with a highly skilled human on board.

• Constant monitoring: drones watch over large areas constantly, making it difficult to move around undetected, on the battlefield and beyond.

• Air, land and sea: unmanned robots are used for rescue, de-mining and now even attacking enemy positions; drone-boats and drone-missiles are also used.

China makes about 70-80% of components for the world’s commercial drones.

Read up on the Drones Arms Race and the geopolitics of drones in our lates report.

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03/06/2026

🔥China, Iran, North Korea and Russia are often discussed as an informal group of countries most interested in reducing US’s global influence.

In reality, there is no formal agreement that brings these 4 together.

However, they are connected by a number of two-way (bilateral) deals.

01/06/2026

🔥On 28 February 2026, the US and Israel started a bombing campaign against Iran.

Iran responded by closing the Strait of Hormuz to all shipping, including 20% of the world’s oil supply. It also attacked US allies in the region.

In our latest Pro report, we analyse the effects of the Iran War on the global economy and energy markets, as well as the results of the military campaign so far.

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