A fascinating interview by Alan Hayward with Colin Bryce and Adi Imsirovic about their new book “The Rivers of Money: Social and Economic History of Modern Oil Trading”. There is so little written about oil trading that their reflections on the development of the industry and how they see the markets going forward, is a rare insight. Colin argues that oil trading is a social constructed business and people are still important despite the rise of AI and big data. Adi talks about how well the oil markets work and that traders and markets are extremely socially useful, but markets are not ethical and that has to be managed. The discussion around the definition of optionality is particularly interesting.