Oil Trades Near $100 as Shipping Crisis Widens

The IEA said today that you're losing about 8 million barrels a day of supply this month. That was about 250 million barrels. So right there, you've already lost a huge chunk of the emergency relief that the IEA coordinated yesterday. The physical oil market is losing supply at a staggering rate that completely outpaces the strategic reserve releases intended to stabilize the market. With no immediate resolution to the blockade, this structural deficit will force crude prices to remain elevated or climb higher. LONG USO as a direct play on sustained supply-side constraints and geopolitical premiums in the global crude market. A sudden diplomatic resolution, immediate de-escalation of the conflict, or a severe global recession that destroys baseline oil demand.

I think the least bad option is to have escorts. But at the moment there doesn't seem to be a clear sign that that's really imminent... at the moment, there's a conflict going on that needs to be dealt with. And until that happens, it's hard to see a really, really rigorous and secure convoy system being created. The inability to safely traverse the Strait of Hormuz forces oil tankers to either sit idle, wait indefinitely, or reroute entirely. This massive logistical inefficiency effectively removes vessel capacity from the global fleet. Lower available ship supply causes tanker charter day-rates to skyrocket, which directly boosts the revenues and profit margins of major global tanker operators. LONG oil tanker equities (FRO, STNG, TNP) as they are the primary beneficiaries of surging shipping rates driven by geopolitical chokepoints and rerouting. Rapid deployment of a secure US-led naval convoy system that normalizes shipping routes and brings charter rates back down to historical averages.