Company
Vortexa is an energy market analytics firm that tracks global oil and gas flows using satellite, vessel, and trade data.
Gulf producers are paying $30 million to $40 million a voyage to shuttle crude out of Hormuz, about $15 to $20 a barrel before insurance. They are taking it out of their own margins, and how long that lasts depends on repairs to a damaged Saudi pipeline.
Reality
China has suspended refined fuel exports with its refiners at about 75% of capacity and US plants at 97%. Any extra diesel now depends on Beijing, while Washington weighs an export ban that would push higher prices onto other importers.
Reality
International oil prices have passed $100 while the US Navy narrows its Hormuz escort windows to two a day, and the overland pipeline that was the alternative to the strait is offline after a drone attack.
Perspective Coverage
6 publishersReality
The International Energy Agency expects a demand shock this year comparable to the pandemic's, and traders are pricing supply anyway, because the missing barrels show up in inventories while the missing demand shows up only in forecasts.
Reality
Traders put 7 to 8 million barrels a day back through the Strait while US reserve draws fell about 40 percent, which leaves heavy Canadian feedstock, not Gulf crude volume, as the number that sets American diesel costs.
Reality