Alkagesta chief executive Orkhan Rustamov has argued in European Business Magazine that analysts and traders awaiting a return to oil market normality are waiting for something that will not materialise.
In the piece, published on 5 August 2026, Rustamov notes that Brent crude has fluctuated more wildly over the preceding six months than at any time since Covid, ranging from around $60 to nearly double that level and 'virtually every number in-between'.
His central argument concerns the baseline itself. Historically, he writes, oil has spent much of its time between $50 and $80 a barrel, with spikes and collapses proving short-lived exceptions — a baseline most analysts and traders treat as the standard from which they operate. Events in the Gulf, he argues, have undermined that assumption.
Rustamov points out that June's Memorandum of Understanding briefly raised hopes of a return to price normality, with prices easing and Gulf production ramping up, before renewed escalation cut Hormuz traffic back to minimal levels. Across July, shipping was down as much as 90% on pre-conflict levels, averaging between eight and 15 ships per day in recent weeks.
Tensions will eventually ease, he acknowledges, but the security the Gulf and the wider world depend on for oil price normality has been 'shattered'. Nations and companies operating the world's most expensive and sophisticated oil and gas infrastructure now find themselves exposed to events beyond their control.
Producers are responding structurally. Rustamov cites the UAE's plan to accelerate the Habshan-Fujairah pipeline, its second East-West line, now due for completion in 2027 with 3.6bn barrels per day of stated capacity to bypass the Strait, alongside DP World's plan for two new container terminals at Fujairah. In Iraq, the Development Road project linking Basra's Grand Faw Port to Turkey would open a 1,200km high-speed rail and road corridor allowing oil to bypass both Hormuz and the Suez Canal.
None of that delivers immediate relief, he writes — and that is the point. The willingness of major producers to commit to multi-year bypass infrastructure is itself evidence that they expect the disruption to outlast the current conflict. For traders and operators, Rustamov's conclusion is that the task is to accept and adapt to the new reality rather than to price a return to the old one.
