Oil-Analog Canon (Condensed)
Purpose
Accelerates structural matching and prevents shallow or metaphorical oil analogies. Each archetype reflects a durable mechanism of economic power.
Archetypes
Trading Houses (Vitol, Glencore)
Function: Price discovery, liquidity provision, risk arbitrage.
Value Capture: Information asymmetry plus balance sheet and optionality.
Pipelines & Midstream (MLPs)
Function: Capacity reservation and toll collection.
Value Capture: Contracted cash flows and high switching costs.
Reserve-Backed Finance
Function: Monetizing future production today.
Value Capture: Financial engineering and risk pricing.
Futures & Derivatives Markets
Function: Risk transfer and temporal smoothing.
Value Capture: Transaction fees and market centrality.
OPEC-Style Governance
Function: Supply coordination and quota setting.
Value Capture: Scarcity management and price stabilization.
Spot vs Contract Market Evolution
Function: Balancing flexibility and stability.
Value Capture: Optionality premiums.
Canon Rule
If an industry exhibits the same structural conditions oil once did but lacks these layers, that absence represents latent, founder-buildable opportunity.
Source: Local file — Project-TBD/Materials/Project_TBD_Oil_Analog_Canon.pdf