The effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz became the largest oil supply disruption in history. But the global market did not go into an uncontrolled price spiral. The shock was sharp, but shorter than the most severe forecasts had anticipated. This is a story not only about oil, but also about which forecasting methods work better under conditions of war, physical supply shortage, and high uncertainty.
Everyone was watching oil, food, and aviation kerosene. But the most durable consequences of the war manifested themselves in other sectors: fertilizers, petrochemicals, aluminum, insurance, and ocean freight. This is a story about why the loudest fears do not always turn out to be the main impact.
The Gulf War passed by Kazakhstan’s export route — but not by its economy. The real blow came not through Hormuz, but through the Black Sea, the CPC, Tengiz, and the limited capacity of alternative routes. This is the story of a country for which a high oil price proved weaker than an infrastructure disruption.
The war became a test for forecasters. Almost everyone identified the key point: the risk for Kazakhstan was not in Hormuz, but in the CPC, Tengiz, and export infrastructure. But beyond that, forecasts diverged. Some focused on GDP, others on the oil price, and still others on the tenge exchange rate. Reality showed that the key variable was not the Brent price, but the country’s ability to produce, export, and monetize oil.
The first material opens the TALAP series and sets the global context: strategic foresight is becoming part of contemporary management practice.
The second material shows how TALAP is turning the global practice of strategic foresight into its own tool for Kazakhstan.
The third material documents a practical test of the approach against the economic agenda of Q1 2026.
The fourth material concludes the series on the development of the TALAP Center’s Expert Signal Radar. The infographic shows how expert data move from the initial corpus to signal nodes, the radar, cascades, and management interpretation.
