I have little doubt that there are plenty of people in the fossil-fueled corners of our economy who are silently, and perhaps not-so-silently, cheering on Donald Trump’s latest war. Oil and natural gas prices spiked upwards in the wake of the military strikes against Iran, with some regional markets seeing price increases as high as 45 per cent. That could just be the beginning of the chaos, too, given the Iranian regime’s ability to close off the Strait of Hormuz and use its one-way drones to attack gas deposits in Qatar and oilfields in Saudi Arabia. If that happens, expect to see the return of $100 per barrel oil. 

I have even less doubt that this is objectively bad news for those same people. Yes, all things being equal, higher oil and gas prices are good for the bottom lines of the oil and gas companies headquartered in places like Calgary and Houston. But all things are very much not equal right now. Unlike the last American misadventure in the Middle East, when a structural shortage of global oil supplies created one of the most lucrative bull markets for oil producers in history, we are still in a market with a structural oversupply of both oil and LNG. 

More importantly, the countries that have to contend with suddenly soaring........

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