$71 and the anxiety tax: Why oil moves before anything actually happens
Brent crude above $71 a barrel isn’t just a market update. It’s a warning light. Oil has a habit of reacting to fear before it reacts to facts, and right now the fear is geopolitical. When tensions rise between the United States and Iran, traders don’t wait for a disruption to happen. They price in the possibility that it could. That “possibility premium” can be enough to lift oil, even in a world where supply looks comfortable on paper.
The important detail is this: the world doesn’t only care about how much oil exists. It cares about how easily it can move. That’s why the Strait of Hormuz keeps coming up whenever Middle East risk enters the conversation. It’s a chokepoint in the global system. If shipping is threatened, delayed, or rerouted, the market reads it as a potential squeeze, and prices respond quickly.
For South Africa, the link is uncomfortably direct. Local fuel prices are influenced by international product prices and the rand. That means global volatility can translate into local cost pressure, especially when the market mood turns. Even if the actual outcome ends up being calmer than the headlines suggest, the period of uncertainty can still do damage by pushing prices higher for long enough to affect monthly calculations.
The story also has a second layer: inflation. Fuel costs are not just a line item for motorists. They feed into transport, logistics, and the cost of moving goods. So a sustained rise in oil can turn into broader pressure, especially in a country where household budgets are already stretched.
The question, then, isn’t whether $71 is historically high or low. The question is whether it’s stable. If it holds, the next chapter isn’t written in Washington or Tehran. It shows up in everyday decisions: commuting, deliveries, food prices, and the silent mental maths people do at the petrol station.
Because the real kicker about oil is this: it doesn’t need to run out to make life more expensive. It just needs the world to believe it might