Venezuela, trade wars and the Berlin brownout - Montel's Geopolitical Report
Montel’s Geopolitical Report – January 2026 examines how a targeted attack on Berlin’s distribution network exposed fragile infrastructure and crisis-readiness gaps and why the broader global backdrop is making Europe’s energy system more vulnerable, not less. Download the full report to understand what’s driving geopolitical risk premiums, policy trade-offs, and market uncertainty at the start of 2026.
What you’ll learn inside:
Hot spot updates driving energy risk premia: from the US strike and special forces operation in Venezuela to tariff escalation, Middle East instability, and Ukraine diplomacy shifting market expectations.
The Berlin brownout and what it revealed: how a single medium-voltage cable attack left 50,000 households and 2,000 businesses without power and why winter outages become health-and-safety crises fast.
In conversation: the new US National Security Strategy: what “America First,” “energy dominance,” and a tougher Western Hemisphere posture could mean for oil, LNG, and Europe’s strategic dependencies.
Turkey’s energy hub gamble: why shifting geopolitics, weakening rivals and Europe’s narrowing supply options are reviving Ankara’s long-shot ambition to become a regional gas hub and what that could mean for Europe’s security of supply, leverage over LNG prices and longer-term Mediterranean energy flows.
China, hydrogen and gas fundamentals: how Europe’s deep reliance on Chinese clean-energy supply chains, the fading hydrogen hype, and tightening gas balances are colliding, forcing policymakers to confront strategic dependencies, cost realities and the hard limits of the energy transition.