$USO on its way down.
Tanker loadings have restarted at Yanbu following restoration of Saudi Arabia's East-West Pipeline.
Satellite imagery indicates nearly 10M barrels have already been loaded at Yanbu/Al Muajjiz, with roughly 40 tankers observed. (Reuters)
⚠️ Meaningful Hormuz update: Saudi Arabia loaded ~14 million barrels onto seven VLCCs Sunday, setting up another major wave of outbound crude movements through Hormuz.
Fresh Reuters reporting today says Saudi Aramco loaded approximately 14 million barrels of crude onto seven VLCCs at Ras Tanura on Sunday, September 20. TankerTrackers identified the seven loadings, and Reuters independently reviewed satellite imagery showing seven tankers near Ras Tanura, making this stronger evidence than AIS alone.
⚠️ Hormuz update -
New Kpler and MarineTraffic data shows Persian Gulf crude have climbed to roughly 8 million barrels per day so far in September, up from about 5.8M bpd in August. Iraq has been a big part of that jump, with loadings rising to around 2.6M bpd, compared with 1.6M in August and under 1M in July.
Tankers are increasingly using a shuttle system. Large VLCCs load crude inside the Gulf, move it through Hormuz, sometimes with AIS tracking turned off, and then transfer the oil to other tankers waiting in the Gulf of Oman.
That means looking only at visible ships moving through Hormuz may be understating how much oil is actually making it to global markets.
That also helps explain why Brent is down roughly 3% today near $103/barrel...watch for some positive news soon,
Trump told AXIOS he has an annoucement to make.
August Retail Sales 🚨
Retail Sales: +1.2% vs. +0.7% expected
Previous: -0.5%
U.S. consumers were still spending in August, even with higher energy prices and inflation pressures. The data suggests much of that spending was back to school shopping.
⚠️ Meaningful update in Hormuz oil flows.
Fresh tanker/satellite analysis indicates that the 7-day average of oil transiting Hormuz has climbed to nearly 12 million barrels/day, the fastest pace since the June–July recovery period. TankerTrackers' September 14 satellite imagery also confirms VLCC supertankers moving through the Strait in both directions during daylight, alongside increased crude, LNG and LPG ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman. @TankerTrackers