Simon Watkins is a former senior FX trader and salesman, financial journalist, and best-selling author. He was Head of Forex Institutional Sales and Trading for Credit Lyonnais, and later Director of Forex at Bank of Montreal. He was then Head of Weekly Publications and Chief Writer for Business Monitor International, Head of Fuel Oil Products for Platts, and Global Managing Editor of Research for Renaissance Capital in Moscow. He has written extensively on oil and gas, Forex, equities, bonds, economics and geopolitics for many leading publications, and has worked as a geopolitical risk consultant for a number of major hedge funds in London, Moscow, and Dubai. In addition, he has authored five books on finance, oil, and financial markets trading published by ADVFN and available on Amazon, Apple, and Kobo.
Since the mid-1990s, China’s economic growth rate has been one of the most important determinants of the oil price (and of the gas price too…
Following the series of crude oil production cuts by OPEC+ since last October, its Joint Ministerial Monitoring Committee (JMMC) is due to meet on 3…
Since Russia invaded Ukraine on 24 February 2022, the West has been scrambling to find reliable sources for consistent oil and gas supplies to compensate…
The long-delayed US$27 billion four-pronged megadeal between France’s TotalEnergies and the Federal Government of Iraq has received the final go-ahead from both sides and is…
Iraq’s parliamentary oil and gas committee plans to increase the country’s oil production to more than five million barrels per day, according to the release…
Given the economic mayhem that energy price-fuelled inflation has caused for Western governments since Russia’s invasion of Crimea, the last thing they want is another…
Of all the geopolitical scenarios perennially judged most likely by the world’s governments to escalate into global nuclear war between the superpowers, a military conflict…
OPEC last week underlined that Asia’s continued strong economic growth would account for virtually all the growth in demand for oil this year. Saudi Aramco…
With Saudi Arabia on one side of it and Iran on the other, Qatar had for a long time to play a delicate diplomatic balancing…
The still largely untapped gas resources of Iraq will be the key focus of a sixth round of exploration and development, with the announcement last…
From the moment that China offered Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) a face-saving way out of the Saudi Aramco initial public offering disaster…
The vast disparity between China’s oil needs to power its economy and its lack of oil reserves has meant that its economy has been a…
A series of meetings occurred last week between senior members of the Iraqi and Chinese governments aimed at broadening and deepening the already extensive ‘oil-for-projects’…
As predicted in my article at the end of May - partly because Russian Deputy Prime Minister and key OPEC+ negotiator Alexander Novak clearly indicated…
Following the recent slew of major cooperation agreements (including in energy, security, and logistics) between various permutations of Iran, Iraq, Russia, and China, another set of…
Following the recent China-brokered resumption of relationship deal between historical enemies Saudi Arabia and Iran, a deal for the Kingdom to develop two key projects…
The last week or so has seen a flurry of major cooperation agreements - including in energy, security, and logistics – between various permutations of…
The recent assurance from Russian Deputy Prime Minister and key OPEC+ negotiator Alexander Novak - that he does not expect the group to take any…
For many years now, the state of China’s economy has been one of the most important determinants of the oil price. The vast disparity between…
A huge new Middle East to Asia pipeline that could provide the East with high volumes of reliable gas supplies for decades is being planned.…