EM Fund Stock Picks & Country Commentaries (March 29, 2026)

In the alternative media space, I have found the geopolitical The Duran podcast (YouTube: The Duran / Rumble: The Duran / theduran / Website: TheDuran) with London based Alexander Mercouris and Cyprus based American Alex Christoforou to be much more informative than corporate media.

They recently interviewed Russian Stanislav Krapivnik who has worked for various multinationals as a supply chain director for oil fields in Eurasia and he explained why the current situation in the Middle East is not just a catastrophe, but a collapse:

🎥 Energy collapse, supply chains WRECKED w/ Stanislav Krapivnik (The Duran) 41:20 Minutes (March 2026)

Energy collapse, supply chains WRECKED w/ Stanislav Krapivnik
Follow Stanislav Krapivnik: / @mrslavikman

(1) 🇷🇺 STANISLAV KRAPIVNIK 🇷🇺 (@STANISKRAPIVNIK) / X

Military-Geopolitical Analyst / Backup @smkrapiv/TG: https://t.me/staswasthereenglish2 / https://t.me/stastydaiobratno /

Substack: Stanislav Krapivnik / https://zmeigarinich.substack.com/

Given Krapivnik’s significant energy industry related experience, he explained in detail the cascade of problems the war is causing e.g.:

Damaged sites will need to be cleared of twisted metal (only good for scrap now) and assessed for damage (both above and below ground) with whatever damaged having lead times e.g. specific types of steel can take months to make (e.g. for valves which also need to be machined, repeatedly pressure tested with water and dried out and retested, etc.).
The high-end Middle East workforce still tends to be Americans/Brits who along with their families were more or less left to fend for themselves by their respective governments (and may not be in a hurry to want to come back to the region – especially if the desalinization plants are hit leading to water shortages). And China and Russia aren’t going to be helping the USA allied Gulf states.
Important equipment is often made to order equipment (or made by hand) and if the well heads need replacing (values are easier to replace but “Christmas trees” are made to order) or the well itself is damaged, it may need to be redrilled.
This equipment will need to come from the USA/Russia/China or from Brazil/India to a lesser degree (not Europe as they don’t have energy to produce it and German steel is too expensive). The companies that make it already have a set amount of volume from their own country’s industries/customers; but all of a sudden you have a gigantic volume coming from war damage…
We need another two Russias (produces 11M barrels and consumes 5M with China eating half the exports) to make up the energy shortfalls. Venezuela’s degraded and warn out equipment produces 800k barrels of heavy crude (that needs light to be mixed in) with $3B in investments needed to get it up to 2M barrels. As for Argentina, most of its gas gets used domestically (and can’t make up the European shortfall).
It takes 3 to 5 years to bring on a completely new field from a clear field to an actual producing field.
Krapivnik also noted that 2022 was self inflicted as politicians with no real world experience/understanding went to the spot market to buy because it was cheaper; but that market is for meant for emergencies (like going to the convenience store to buy something you just ran out of). Spot market prices for everything are or will be skyrocketing…

He said we could be looking at 1 to 2+ years or even several years IF the conflict drags on for a return to normalcy (and assuming there is the money to fix everything).

Christoforou explained how he was told that refineries are very resilient and can be repaired quickly. Damaging or shutting down the actual oil extraction and production facilities (rather than just the refineries) is what leads to a crisis and damage over time.

Krapivnik pointed out that’s true – to a degree. In the Ukraine conflict, its oil storage facilities that are getting hit (to create “pretty” pictures/videos); but its the (computerized and pressurized) piping situation where there is serious complexity and logistical bottlenecks. Again, much of this is hand made or made to order, you can’t just patch them up (as it will never hold the same amount of pressure again as a weld becomes a weak point, etc), and its a logistical nightmare to move larger parts around like pipes (e.g. special vehicles are needed, etc).

Note: My father retired a decade ago from working on the shop floor of a company making/assembling various steel products. When the fracking boom accelerated (I guess beyond the capacity of manufacturing companies back east to keep up), the company was trying to get piping jobs. The problem was that all the shop guys at the company who knew how to make pipes were near retirement, retired or dead while the manufacturing plus the oil industry in California had already been decimated by state regulations (meaning there weren’t many workers who knew how to do this sort of work elsewhere in the state and you aren’t going to get them to move to expensive California from other parts of the country that are all much cheaper to live in…). In other words, there is probably almost no capacity to ramp up production from any war damage in the Middle East because there just are not that many workers who know how to do this sort of work…

It was then noted that roughly 40% of the world’s chemical fertilizer comes from Russia with another 25-30% coming from Qatar with these facilities being dependent on gas (which needs to be cleaned, filtered and dried before being used) coming out of the wells.

Russia also has a diesel export ban until the end of the planting season because you need diesel (trucks, tractors, etc.) to spread the fertilizer (20% of a farmer’s costs) and they want to make sure their farmers are able to plant (vs. European and African farmers). You also need diesel to get the fertilizer in and transport crops to market. But without artificial fertilizers (which fuelled the “green revolution”), yields drop by 1/4th to 1/2th.

Krapivnik noted a friend in Italy who he interviewed a few months ago who said among the lower classes there (not the migrants as they are getting taken care of…), there is already often not enough money or food by week 3 or 4 of a month to feed a poor family. People will get even more hungrier or have less money for food when industries cut back on work hours due to the lack of energy (as 80% of the gas goes to industry).

Europe’s only hope might be to “cosy up” to Russia for energy; but Krapivnik noted that Russians are in no mood to help Europeans (whose politicians have already burned most bridges with Russia along with China) and the USA cannot help them beyond supplying their excess gas. By summer time (once people figure out the real food situation as its planting season in Southern Europe now followed by Northern Europe in the coming weeks), food futures prices will skyrocket.

Finally, Krapivnik mentioned the old Russian saying, “winter is not beyond the mountains…” and commented that “cold hungry angry people are very mean…” If Europeans don’t have enough food and gas to heat their homes, things are going to get ugly there fast…

As of the end of March, more February fund updates have become available (our continuously updated post containing all funds is here) along with new research starting with a non-EM piece:

🔬🌍 Industrial property: the key to Europe’s economic revival (Aberdeen Investments) – Could industrial real estate be Europe’s strongest growth story?

New Asia Fund Documents & Research

🔬🌏 Waiting for the clouds to part (Aberdeen Investments) – In a gloomy period of market turbulence, Abrdn Asia Focus PLC (LON: AAS) Manager Gabriel Sacks explains why long‑term investors can still find reasons for optimism as the clouds begin to lift.
🎙️🌏 abrdn Asia-Pacific Income Fund, VCC. (FAP) – 40th Anniversary Podcast (Aberdeen Investments) 14:40 Minutes – In this special episode, Adam McCabe—Head of Fixed Income, Asia Pacific and Portfolio Manager for FAP—reflects on the fund’s rich history and enduring relevance.

🗄️🌏 Fidelity Asian Values Plc (LON: FAS)’s February monthly factsheet (short economic and portfolio review) noted that they have exposure to select Indonesian stocks which detracted from performance while underweight exposure to South Korea and Taiwan hurt returns. Selections within materials and consumer discretionary helped performance.
🔬🌏🚩 Asia Tech+: Ride the tech innovation wave? (FTSE Russell) – For years, US technology giants have dominated both investor attention and global equity indices. But the US is no longer the sole gravitational force in the global technology race. Amidst today’s unstoppable digitalisation trend and the awakening of the need to become technologically self-reliant, a new tech epicentre is emerging – Asia.

New Asia Fund Documents & Research

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