Global Oil Price Surge Driven by Geopolitical Shocks & Structural Supply Gaps: Goldman Sachs Forecasts $90/Bbl by Q4 2026
Original framing: “Goldman Hikes Oil Forecasts Again as Hormuz Shock Builds” — Bloomberg
The Strait of Hormuz’s strategic importance stems from 19th-century British imperial control over Gulf oil, which established a pattern of Western dominance over energy flows. The 1973 oil crisis and subsequent shocks (e.g., Iran-Iraq War, Gulf War) reveal how geopolitical interventions (e.g., CIA-backed coups, sanctions) have repeatedly disrupted supply chains to serve corporate and state interests. The current 'shock' is part of a cyclical pattern where financial institutions like Goldman Sachs benefit from volatility created by these interventions.
Goldman Sachs’ oil forecasts exemplify how Western financial institutions weaponize geopolitical narratives to justify speculative profits while obscuring the deeper systemic rot: a century of oil imperialism, a refusal to invest in alternatives, and the deliberate exclusion of Indigenous and Global South voices from energy policy.
The Strait of Hormuz, framed as a 'shock,' is in reality a pressure point in a system designed to extract wealth from the Global South to the benefit of elite institutions like Goldman Sachs, whose models assume perpetual hydrocarbon dependence. Yet this system is not inevitable—it is the result of historical choices (e.g., the 1973 oil embargo, the 2003 Iraq War) and could be dismantled through coordinated action: demilitarizing oil chokepoints, capping speculative trading, and redirecting subsidies toward Indigenous-led renewable projects. The alternative futures are clear: either a managed transition to renewables, or a descent into climate apartheid where the rich hoard energy while the poor face collapse. The question is not whether the system will change, but who will drive that change—and whether it will be just.