Method
How this briefing is made.
Anyone can publish a strong opinion about the Strait of Hormuz. What follows is the machinery that makes ours accountable.
What PetroBriefing is
PetroBriefing publishes two subscription intelligence briefings — Geostrategic Watch and Energy Geopolitics — in English and French. Each is delivered by email on Monday and Thursday, before 07:00 CET, in a two-part structure: a dense command dashboard readable in five to ten minutes, and a longer strategic analysis for those who want the argument in full.
The service is published by Petrobriefing LLC, a New Mexico limited liability company, United States of America. It carries no advertising and accepts no sponsored content. Subscriptions are our only revenue, which is deliberate: our incentive is to be right and useful, not to be popular with anyone in particular.
The five rules we hold ourselves to
1. No mechanism, no risk
Every risk we raise must have a nameable mechanism: which corridor, which infrastructure, which volume, which buyer is affected. If we cannot name the mechanism, the risk does not appear — however alarming the headline that prompted it. This single rule eliminates most of what passes for geopolitical commentary.
2. Infrastructure is named with its status
"An existing pipeline from Iraq" is a rumour. "The Kirkuk–Ceyhan line, reopened in March 2026 after three years of arbitration" is a fact. Every piece of infrastructure we cite carries its name, its capacity where relevant, and its current operating status.
3. Every risk can be checked — and is scored
Each issue carries five risks. Each is a binary event with a numerical threshold, a dated deadline and a named resolution source — "zero Hormuz transits over five consecutive days before 15 September, as reported by Kpler", not "rising tensions". Probabilities run the full 5–95% scale, and no more than two may sit in the 40–60% band, because a table where everything says "maybe" informs nobody.
The following issue settles the previous table: realised, not realised, or carried forward with a revised probability. The running tally is published with the table. Most services never tell you whether they were right. We think that is the whole point.
4. Geography of the winners
Every section answers three questions: who gains, who loses, and where the buyer sits. An Atlantic barrel is not worth the same to a Rotterdam refiner as a Gulf barrel; a terminal east of Bab el-Mandeb serves Asia, not Europe. This flow geography is the analytical signature of the publication.
5. Frameworks are named, sources are named
Part II is anchored in an explicit analytical framework — chokepoint theory, sanctions coercion, the political economy of transitions, infrastructure geopolitics — and the framework is named in the text rather than smuggled in. Sources are cited in plain prose, without academic apparatus. Where a claim rests on a single source, we say so.
Sourcing
Each issue is built from primary and specialist material: government and regulatory publications, energy agency and industry data, market and shipping intelligence, think-tank research, and the published work of recognised analysts in the field. Market figures carry their observation date. Weekend editions state plainly when a price is a Friday close rather than a live quote.
We do not publish unattributed figures. "Some companies" and "experts estimate" are not evidence, and they do not appear.
Corrections
Errors are corrected in the next issue, in plain language, at the point where the error occurred — not in a footnote. A factual error in a briefing that costs money to read is a serious matter, and we treat it as one. If you believe we have got something wrong, tell us; we would rather be corrected by a reader than repeat a mistake.
What this is not
PetroBriefing is editorial and informational: it is not a trading tool but an instrument of in-depth geopolitical analysis. It is not financial, investment or legal advice, and it does not manage or recommend positions. Our readers are professionals who make their own decisions; our job is to make sure those decisions rest on something better than a headline.
Who writes it
PetroBriefing is written or co-written and supervised by James J. Bötkös, editor-in-chief, an expert and adviser in geopolitics. He sets the editorial angle of each issue, directs the analysis and signs it at the foot of every edition. When you disagree with a judgment in these pages, you know exactly whose judgment it is — which is not the case with most services in this field.