Donald Trump’s decision to leave the Iran nuclear deal and slap sanctions on Teheran is the most significant energy development of 2018. The first round of Iran sanctions, in place since August 4th, targeting Iran’s automotive and metal sectors, has only added fuel to the increasingly dangerous geopolitical fire, as Teheran’s blocking the Hormuz Strait has become a fully imaginable prospect for the first time since the Iran-Iraq war ended in 1988. Understandably, media are buzzing with expert analysis regarding trade implications – spreads narrowing, crude flows changing and third-party actors using the Iran-U.S. conflict to their advantage – yet it would be also of interest to look at the upstream ramifications of the impending sanctions. By looking closely at five unfolding scenarios, one can get a fairly clear understanding of where things are headed if the implementation of sanctions goes ahead as currently expected – meaning no softening […]