I HAVE been reporting THIS for several weeks…..
Trump says he’s blockading Iran ….
But MILLIONS of barrels of oil ARE moving thru the Strait of Hormuz , some with Oman and Iran ok’s, some just sneaking thru, some be attacked…..
Energy Secretary Chris Wright says about 9 million barrels of oil are moving through the Strait of Hormuz every day.
But nonpartisan oil tanker trackers say it’s likely 7 million barrels at best, or more likely, closer to 5 million.
President Donald Trump has repeatedly said that the oil is flowing freely through the strait, which even before the war was a global energy chokepoint. On Monday, he told reporters at the White House that the U.S. has total control over the strait and that “we’re taking out millions of barrels of oil a week.”
“The strait is open and the oil prices are coming down, and they will continue to come down unless we decide to do something more drastic than what we’ve been doing,” Trump said.
But experts say the Trump administration’s figures cannot be trusted because there’s no data that shows that volume of oil is actually moving through the strait.
It appears as if Wright was “just pulling a number out of the air,” said Matt Smith, director of Commodity Research at Kpler, a leading firm tracking tanker movements.
“The reality is that Iran has the leverage, Iran has the control,” he said. “The only tankers that are really passing through the Strait of Hormuz are those that are operating through Iranian waters.”
The recent peak might be as much as 7 million barrels a day, said Rory Johnston, founder of Commodity Context, a Canada-based oil markets analytics firm. He questioned Wright’s claims about 20 million barrels leaving the region, however, and said the administration has not “earned the benefit of the doubt on oil market estimates.”….
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The total volume of global crude that is available on any given day sets oil prices, which in turn shapes grocery costs, transportation expenses, consumer spending and much more. In short, the more crude that moves, the better it is for affordability everywhere, which is a boon for politicians running on that message in November’s elections.
Before the war, an average of almost 140 ships a day crossed through the strait, transporting fertilizer, aluminum, helium liquefied natural gas and about 20 million barrels a day of crude. On Sunday, just 3 ships crossed the strait, according to data from commodities tracking firm Kpler. Last week, only 95 ships total crossed the strait, Kplerfound…..
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Though 9 million barrels seems like a stretch, there has been an uptick in the amount of crude escaping the strait in recent months, according to Michelle Bockmann, an analyst at Windward, a maritime intelligence firm. In July, data shows that up to 5 million barrels a day moved through the strait, compared to 4 million in June and 1.6 million in July, she said.
Still, Bockmann said, tracking the exact number of ships transiting the strait is getting harder because there are a growing number of “dark transits.”
Last week, Mason Hamilton, vice president of economics and research at the American Petroleum Institute, summed up the current state of affairs for people tracking oil flows through the strait.
“Might as well just rename it Schrödinger’s Strait…” he wrote on X, referring to the theory in quantum mechanics which holds that something can exist in multiple possible states until it is observed or measured….
Note….
Does the above signal that the Trump admin IS ok with ‘saying’ oil IS flowing thru the Strait, so that Gas prices would fall?
If this is the case?
WTF IS the US Military still hanging around the gulf?
What IS Trump’s end game?
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