When the oil trading community descended on London for its annual International Energy Week jamboree last week, the bears outnumbered the bulls, probably by three-to-one. They fought about supply. They argued about demand. But, above all, they clashed to control the market’s narrative. Eventually, the bears prevailed — just.

In commodity markets, vibe often matters more than spreadsheets. Ibrahim Al-Muhanna, who shaped Saudi-speak for decades as a senior aide to several of the kingdom’s oil ministers, wrote in his memoirs that at times of crisis or uncertainty, “sentiment overshadows fundamentals.” We’re in one of those unsettled periods, with few traders having a strong conviction about how many barrels of crude the world will produce by mid-year. Get a potential war or a peace negotiation wrong in the calculus, and wave goodbye to a year’s worth of P&L.

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