re: How 'Dark' Tankers In Strait Of Hormuz Are Keeping Oil Prices In Check

quote:

---

There is another way to check: Oil can’t move through the strait if it isn’t first put on tankers somewhere in the Persian Gulf. Those figures also don’t line up with the U.S. transit claims.

LSEG puts crude and product loadings inside the Persian Gulf at about 4.4 million barrels a day in July and 1.9 million so far in August.

The data provider says Iraq, which lacks a major bypass route, loaded just 1.1 million barrels a day so far this month, less than a third of prewar levels, while Kuwait loaded 0.5 million, one-fifth of its prewar rate. Kuwaiti officials say they are exporting more, around 1 million barrels a day.

The ultimate check on Washington’s numbers is whether the barrels ultimately surface somewhere. Even if tankers disappear while crossing Hormuz, much of that oil should eventually show up in data on barrels unloaded to buyers or middlemen.

So far, the U.S. government’s claimed volumes aren’t fully showing up in other countries’ import volumes. According to LSEG data, an average of 11.6 million barrels per day of Middle Eastern crude and refined products have been or are scheduled to be discharged in Asia.

That number includes oil exports routed around Hormuz by pipeline, not just barrels escorted through the chokepoint.

---