Alkagesta chief executive Orkhan Rustamov has told European Business Magazine that traders waiting for oil markets to settle back into a pre-disruption pattern are planning for a world that no longer exists.
His argument is structural. Sanctions regimes, rerouted flows around the Red Sea and the compliance cost of carbon have each changed the cost base of moving a barrel, and none of them reverse on a market cycle.
The practical consequence, he says, is that execution capability now matters more than price view. Access to storage, credit lines, vetted vessels and compliance screening determines which trades a desk can actually complete when a route closes at short notice.
He also points to counterparty concentration. As banks and majors narrow the list of independents they will deal with, mid-sized traders are judged on documentation and delivery record rather than volume alone.
The interview frames the company's recent expansion into carbon and benchmark assessment processes as part of that positioning.
