Great-power stabilization anchors the outlook: Xi Jinping's confirmed Sept 24 Washington summit is set to yield narrow US-China energy deliverables even as a Saudi pipeline strike pushes Brent to $104 and forces European emergency energy measures. Beijing and New Delhi are poised to keep buying Russian oil despite Washington's new sanctions law, while gray-zone friction in the South China Sea, anti-AfD mobilization in Germany, and sticky US mortgage rates round out a multi-crisis week.

China and India have absorbed multiple prior sanctions waves without abandoning discounted Russian crude, treating it as core energy security. The Xi state visit on Sep 24 is decisive additional evidence: Trump would not credibly impose flow-stopping secondary measures on China days before a stabilization summit he wants to frame as a win (his escalate→deal→claim-victory pattern, BVI 8). Xi's low-volatility, strategic-autonomy posture (BVI 2) makes a Chinese capitulation implausible. The Skeptic passed at 71. The analyst set 0.68; I raise to 0.85 because the summit context plus the strong empirical base rate of buyer resilience make continued purchasing near-certain — the only real uncertainty is the word 'marginal,' since some reshuffling of shadow-fleet logistics is likely. This is the effectiveness side of the sanctions story; the companion forecast covers a token U.S. enforcement step.