A list of the most pertinent questions facing the oil market would look something like this:

Will the ending of US waivers for buyers of Iranian crude drive the country’s exports to zero? Are there other producers who might increase output to replace lost supply?

In the oil market, no country is an island. A supply disruption one place can have ramifications far away.

Take the recent shutdown of an oilfield in southwestern Libya and why that might matter in Primorsk, Russia or Ceyhan, Turkey.

On December 9, an armed group seized control of the Sharara oilfield (315,000 barrels per day), Libya’s largest.