Qasem Al-Ali Profile picture
Covering global energy markets, geopolitics & capital flows. MSc Finance | CME | ICWIM | عضو جمعية الاقتصاد السعودية. Views are my own
Jun 5 10 tweets 3 min read
SpaceX IPO is loading.

But this isn’t a listing.

This is the most carefully engineered insider exit Wall Street has ever signed off on.

A full breakdown — including what Morgan Stanley’s own 132-page model missed 🧵 In April 2024, Morgan Stanley valued SpaceX at $180 billion.

26 months later — it lists at $1.77 trillion. Nearly 10× higher.

Saudi Aramco raised $29B in its IPO. SpaceX is raising $75B.

The largest IPO in human history. And the company lost $4.28B in Q1 2026 alone. Image
Jun 1 6 tweets 1 min read
🚨 EMERGENCY SPR ALERT 🚨

The U.S. just burned through 57.7 million barrels of Strategic Petroleum Reserve in 3 months.

At this pace — America’s emergency buffer hits 300mb by August.

🧵 A thread on what this means for oil markets 👇 1/ The numbers are staggering

•Jan: +1.7mb (still buying)
•Feb: +0.2mb (still buying)
•Mar: (0.4mb) ← pivot
•Apr: (20.3mb) ← acceleration
•May: (37.4mb) ← EMERGENCY pace

This isn’t gradual. This is a panic release.
May 30 10 tweets 2 min read
Brent down 17% in May.

The market is pricing in a deal.

But no deal is signed.
Trump hasn’t approved.
Iran said nothing is final.
Hormuz still blocked.

The physical market doesn’t care about hope.

It cares about barrels. 🛢️

Here’s what the data actually says 🧵👇 Global crude exports: -9M b/d
Global product exports: -4M b/d

Goldman: Inventories plunged 8.7M b/d in May alone

JPMorgan: Only 0.8B of 8.4B barrels realistically available before operational stress.

‘Like blood pressure in the human body — the issue is circulation’

We are at the operational floor. 🚨
May 29 7 tweets 2 min read
This morning on Bloomberg Surveillance, Chevron’s CEO Mike Wirth warned of gasoline price spikes and physical oil shortages — weeks away.

The futures market reacted with a shrug.

Someone is catastrophically wrong.

Let me show you who. 🧵 This week alone: multiple attacks on vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz.

Gulf oil production is down 57% since the war began — Goldman Sachs estimate.

The world is drawing from stockpiles at 10M barrels/day just to keep the lights on.

That’s not a pricing problem. That’s a physics problem.
May 26 7 tweets 2 min read
Two months ago, the SPR was being refilled.
Today it’s in freefall.
What history tells us happens next to oil prices — a thread 🧵
#OOTT US SPR: 365mb
That’s:
→ Below the 43-year low I flagged 2 weeks ago
→ Down ~45mb in under 6 weeks
→ At current pace: hits ~320mb by end of June
We are in uncharted territory.
May 19 10 tweets 2 min read
The oil market is about to break.
Not in price. In availability.
@CommodMkt on CNBC yesterday

and the market still isn’t listening.
“It’s not the price of oil that matters here. It’s the availability of oil.”
A thread on why the next few weeks could be the most important in the oil market this decade. 🧵 First — who is Currie?
30+ years in commodities.
Nearly 3 decades as Global Head of Commodities Research at Goldman Sachs.
Now Executive Co-Chairman at Abaxx Markets.
When he speaks, the market should pay attention. Today, it isn’t.
May 13 10 tweets 2 min read
Yesterday I told you how America built its oil fortress over 46 years.
Today I’ll show you exactly how it was destroyed.
And give you the precise date it hits a level not seen since Ronald Reagan was president.
🧵 March 2022. Russia invades Ukraine.
Biden makes a decision that will define U.S. energy security for a generation:
Release the SPR.
Not 10mb. Not 30mb.
180 million barrels — the largest emergency release in human history.
May 9 5 tweets 1 min read
JPMorgan just published the scariest oil chart I’ve ever seen.
World inventories are in freefall.
And when this line hits 6.8 — the global energy system doesn’t slow down.
It breaks. 🧵 Image The timeline according to JPMorgan:
▸ Feb 2026 → Iran war disrupts supply
▸ June 2026 → Inventories hit 7.6B barrels (Operational Stress Level)
▸ Sept 2026 → Inventories hit 6.8B barrels (Operational Floor)
That last number isn’t a warning.
It’s the minimum required to keep pipelines pressurized and refineries alive.
May 1 7 tweets 2 min read
J.P. Morgan just described the end of the modern oil system in a 12-page PDF.
They called it: “The Illusion of Plenty”
Nobody is talking about what happens the day after.
Here’s what that looks like. 👇 JPMorgan says global inventories hit Operational Floor by September.
“Operational Floor” = the minimum needed to keep the system alive.
Below it — pipelines lose pressure. Terminals shut. Refineries go offline.
Not a shortage.
A cascade failure. Image
Apr 30 7 tweets 2 min read
Everyone is asking why oil prices keep rising.
The real question is simpler:
Why can’t the world just replace Gulf oil?
The answer is chemistry. 👇 Crude oil varies by two things:
1.Weight (API gravity) — Heavy vs Light
2.Sulfur content — Sour vs Sweet
Most people assume oil is oil.
It’s not.
A refinery built for one type cannot efficiently process another without major modifications.
Like trying to put diesel in a petrol engine.
Apr 29 6 tweets 1 min read
Today, three of the world’s most credible institutions spoke.
World Bank. IEA. S&P Global.
All three said the same thing.
Here’s what they said — and what it means. 👇 World Bank — April 29, 2026:
— Energy prices up 24% this year
— Fertilizer prices up 31%
— Urea prices up 60%
— Overall commodity prices up 16%
“The biggest energy supply shock in history.”
And that’s their baseline scenario.
Apr 27 9 tweets 2 min read
Goldman Sachs just upgraded their oil forecast.
Published yesterday. Most people haven’t read it yet.
Here’s what they’re actually saying. 👇 Image Goldman’s headline number:
14.5M b/d of Persian Gulf production offline.
Driving global inventory draws at a record 11–12M b/d in April.
For context — the largest inventory draw before this crisis was ~5M b/d.
This is more than double. In a single month.
Apr 24 8 tweets 2 min read
What should oil actually be trading at right now?
I ran the math. The number is uncomfortable.
Here’s the model 🧵 In 2020, COVID removed ~9% of global oil demand.
The market response:
— OPEC+ cut 9.7M b/d
— Price moved from $65 → -$37
— A $102 swing downward
9% demand shock = $102 price move.
Apr 23 8 tweets 2 min read
In 2020, COVID destroyed demand for oil.
The world cut production by 9.7M b/d to absorb the shock.
In 2026, Hormuz destroyed supply.
But this time — nobody can cut demand by 15M b/d.
That’s the problem. 🧵 COVID at its worst:
— Demand collapsed ~20M b/d in April 2020
— OPEC+ cut production 9.7M b/d — largest cut in history
— Oil went negative for the first time ever
— Inventories filled to the brim
The solution: cut production to match demand.
Simple equation.
Apr 22 7 tweets 2 min read
The oil crisis is worse than anything in modern history.
Nobody is panicking.
That’s the problem. 🧵 The world uses 100 million barrels of oil per day.
Right now, 15–20 million of them are missing.
That gap is larger than the entire daily oil consumption of the United States.
And you haven’t felt it yet. Here’s why 👇
Apr 21 7 tweets 2 min read
The oil market is speaking two different languages.
Physical market: screaming scarcity.
Paper market: pricing peace.
One of them is wrong. Here’s which one Image Dated Brent (physical): $106
Brent June Futures (paper): $94.57
A $11.43 gap — and it’s not random noise.
The physical market is experiencing severe supply tightness, with spreads that typically move by cents now expanding to $10, $20, or more.
This is the market screaming at you
Apr 20 8 tweets 2 min read
The oil market just passed its breaking point.
And it doesn’t matter if the Strait of Hormuz opens tomorrow.
Here’s why the damage is already done 🧵 Even if a ceasefire is signed TODAY:
— Floating tankers need 30–40 days to offload
— VLCCs rerouted to the US need 3+ months to return
— Onshore ME storage needs to drain ~200M bbls first
The supply gap doesn’t care about peace deals
Apr 19 6 tweets 2 min read
Want to understand Iran’s negotiation strategy today?
Don’t read the news.
Read history.
The Persian playbook is 2,500 years old.
And it has never failed them.
🧵 491 BC. Darius the Great wants to conquer Greece.
Before sending a single soldier —
he sends diplomats.
The message: “Give us earth and water.”
Translation: Submit. Surrender. Or we come.
Many Greek cities complied without a fight.
Athens refused. Executed the envoys.
Sparta threw them into a well.
Persia learned who would fold under pressure —
before the battle even started.
Diplomacy as intelligence. Not peace
Apr 18 7 tweets 1 min read
70% of American farmers can no longer afford the fertilizer they need.
This isn’t a headline from a war zone.
This is happening inside the United States. Right now. During planting season.
A thread 🧵 This comes from an official survey by the American Farm Bureau Federation.
5,700+ farmers. All 50 states. Conducted April 3–11, 2026.
Not an estimate. Not a projection.
A snapshot of American agriculture in real time.
Apr 17 10 tweets 2 min read
Oil just dropped 11% because the Strait of Hormuz is “open.”
Let me show you why the market is making one of the biggest mistakes of 2026 Over 800 oil tankers are currently stranded in the Gulf area.
The strait is a 3-lane highway merging into 1.
400 loaded tankers want OUT. Only ~100 empty tankers are willing to come IN.
That’s not a reopening. That’s a traffic jam measured in billions of dollars.
Mar 20 4 tweets 1 min read
This morning: Goldman Sachs warned of higher oil for longer.

Tonight: WSJ reports Saudi officials are running the numbers — and they don’t like what they see.

Here’s what’s coming 🧵👇 “Saudi internal assessments now project:

📍 $125 today — Saudi light crude via Red Sea
📍 $138–140 next week as storage runs out
📍 $150 → $165 → $180 in the weeks ahead

If Hormuz stays shut past April. 🛢️💥”