Are Black Markets Disrupting Forecasts

On today’s show we’re looking at the impact of black markets on the quality of data in today’s data rich environment.

In particular, we are going to be looking at energy and trying to make sense out of numbers that just don’t add up.

We have experienced one year since the start of the war in the Ukraine. At the start of the war oil prices shot through the roof as energy supply chains around the world were disrupted. Part of the increase in price was caused by fear that economic sanctions would mean oil shortages. Now One year later oil prices have reverted to levels that reflect a new stability. Western governments have imposed supposedly crippling sanctions on the Russian government. They have imposed a price cap on exports of Russian oil. Yet it seems that the crisis of oil supply in Europe has failed to materialize. The shortage of oil was temporary.

The fact is Russia has been able to avoid sanctions on a very large scale by effectively laundering oil in many places around the world. Many countries with excess refining capacity have been purchasing oil from Russia, and then reselling refined products to those very same markets that were previously refusing to purchase Russian oil. there is no shortage at the gas pumps in Europe one of the consequences of this massive black market in oil is a degradation in the quality of the data. If you track the number of barrels of refined product and compare them to the official numbers for crude oil imports, it is obvious that the numbers do not add up.

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Host: Victor Menasce

email: podcast@victorjm.com