Gulf Producers Move 8 Million Barrels a Day in Dark Hormuz Runs as US Escorts Tankers
Updated
Updated · CNN · Aug 21
Gulf Producers Move 8 Million Barrels a Day in Dark Hormuz Runs as US Escorts Tankers
3 articles · Updated · CNN · Aug 21
Summary
About 80% of recent Strait of Hormuz traffic has moved in AIS-dark, US-escorted nighttime transits, letting Saudi, Kuwaiti, Qatari and Emirati producers keep crude flowing despite Iranian drone threats.
The workaround shifts insurance and attack risk from commercial shippers to producers and the US government, with tankers slipping to the Gulf of Oman for ship-to-ship transfers before cargoes continue to Asia.
US Department of Energy data puts actual Hormuz flows at 8 million to 9 million barrels a day—roughly double what Wall Street analysts and trackers relying on transponder signals had inferred.
Saudi Arabia has also rerouted about 5 million barrels a day through its East-West pipeline to Yanbu, while another 2 million barrels a day has been diverted around Hormuz.
The tactic buys time, not a fix: oil inventories are down by as much as 1.9 billion barrels, US emergency reserves sit near early-1980s lows, and crude is edging back toward $100.