Since the start of the conflict, the market reaction has remained, on the surface, classic: oil prices rise, inflation expectations climb again, and the specter of stagflation resurfaces. A familiar pattern… perhaps too familiar.
Because the real risk today is precisely analyzing a 21st-century crisis with the reflexes of the 1970s.
Oil is capturing everyone's attention, and rightly so. It's a visible, liquid, global indicator that markets can interpret quickly.
But it's also, paradoxically, the simplest shock.
Its mechanisms are well known:
rising prices → inflation → pressure on central banks → potential economic slowdown.
In other words: a brutal, but predictable, shock.
The problem is that while everyone is focused on this obvious signal, much deeper and potentially more destabilizing tensions are developing in the background.
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is now a central component of the global energy system.
Unlike oil, it doesn't just power transportation:
it directly determines the price of electricity in many regions, particularly in Europe.
And this is where the situation becomes critical.
A major portion of global energy flows transits through the Strait of Hormuz, with key players like Qatar. Any disruption translates not only into higher prices, but also into a challenge to the global energy balance.
It's no longer a question of cost.
It's a question of availability.
The result:
* increased pressure on the already weakened European industry
* increasingly costly energy trade-offs
* gradual entry into a logic of scarcity
This is probably the most underestimated risk today.
Fertilizers (urea, ammonia, nitrogen derivatives) are heavily dependent on gas and, indirectly, on this geopolitical region.
The price increase is already underway—but its impact is delayed:
1. Agricultural production costs rise
2. Farmers reduce the volumes used
3. Yields fall
4. Food prices rise… several months later
This type of dynamic is dangerous for one simple reason:
it is slow, diffuse, and difficult to anticipate.
And historically, it is precisely this kind of shock that triggers:
* social tensions
* political instability
* crises in emerging economies
the invisible chokepoint
This is the most discreet, yet strategic, shock.
A significant portion of global helium production is linked to LNG infrastructure, particularly in Qatar. So when the gas supply is disrupted… so is helium.
Helium is essential to critical sectors:
* semiconductors
* medical imaging (MRI)
* space industry
* certain AI-related infrastructure
It's not a commodity visible to the general public, but it's a key link in highly sensitive value chains.
Typically, the kind of bottleneck capable of disrupting an entire industry.
What we're seeing isn't a uniform shock.
It's a layering of tensions across several layers of the economy:
* Energy → LNG
* Agriculture → fertilizers
* Technology → helium
We're no longer talking about classic stagflation, but fragmented, sector-specific stagflation, much more complex to understand and manage.
Oil remains the most visible signal… but it may only be the tip of the iceberg.
The real imbalances are forming elsewhere:
in less liquid, less closely monitored, but infinitely more structuring markets.
And as is often the case in markets,
it is these slow, invisible, technical, and underestimated dynamics
that ultimately trigger the most violent disruptions.