CEO OF HSBC15 Apr 2026 19:36
What worries me is not the headlines. I mean, oil headline is above $100, $110. Realistically, if you are now trying to get oil from the Middle East, you may be paying $140, $150.
Realistically, if you try to get oil from the Red Sea, you are paying more than $30, $40 for shipping.
Insurance costs, which used to be 25 basis points, is more like 5%, and war insurance has been scrapped - you're paying 5% without even the war insurance component.
So the barrel of oil door to door or the barrel of refined oil door to door is way above the headline price of oil. The highest I've seen, and I'm hoping we don't see more of that, but the highest I've seen is $286 for a barrel of oil that reached Sri Lanka. This is not a country and an economy that can easily afford these kind of prices sustainably.