It has been an eventful year for world energy: oil supply jump scares in the Middle East, a surge in electricity demand, and a nuclear renaissance were all among the hallmarks of 2024, along with a pickup in natural gas demand. All of these trends appear set to continue into 2025, along with increasingly severe challenges on the path of the energy transition. In oil, 2024 was an interesting year, with OPEC and the International Energy Agency vastly differing in their forecasts about demand for the commodity that underpins the global economy. Other analysts also disagreed, leaving traders stuck between actual fundamentals and predictions based on unproved assumptions, such as the adoption rate of electric cars, which has been weakening everywhere except in China. Speaking of demand and China, the latter was the key driver of oil prices this year. Almost every report on oil price changes featured the phrase “concern about Chinese demand” in its lede—unless it featured the latest from the Middle East, the supply-side driver of oil prices for the year. Chinese demand growth this year apparently underwhelmed, disappointing traders who expected it to continue growing at double-digit percentage figures forever. What’s more, several stimulus packages announced […]