Volte-Face Investments

Ex-investment mngr, now consultant. No tweet represents investment advice. RETWEETS ARENT ENDORSEMENTS. I post at Energy Investing as Doomonyou

[Volte-Face Investments @VolteFaceInvest]

I am the admin of two public energy investing message boards (doomonyou at both). Due to a serious hacking attack the older board ( https://t.co/8hEsPK2hxr… ) is not publicly viewable and is not free to join like it used to be. It is working normally however at this time if you were a member you are still. I have setup a new public board, fully moderated, to discuss energy and metals investing at X communities at https://t.co/lgTDMsSNA5 with many of the same people there and that one is free to join and publicly viewable without consideration.

For now the Investorvillage board is much busier and has recovered somewhat to its old volume of posts. But both boards will be maintained in case Investorvillage has future problems, as I am not clear on the new pay-only business model works long term. Better to be prepared.

[Volte-Face Investments @VolteFaceInvest]

@NewsFinOil @wtxoil [Adding wtxoil to New Group : TFFSFs]

[Mark @Mark4XX]

Gavin is exactly right. Iran refuses to let Trump escape with any kind of win. Under no circumstances will they allow even the appearance of victory. They want complete and total defeat for the man who bragged about wiping out the Supreme Leader’s entire family.
Few people understand that.

[Volte-Face Investments @VolteFaceInvest]

The physical #oil squeeze continues to approach veryyyyy fast.

[The Fat Pitch @the_fat_pitch]

🛢️ July SPR Cliff: Why Global Strategic Stock Releases Will Fall Sharply from 2.5mb/d to 0.7mb/d

Strategic petroleum reserves (SPRs) have served as the primary buffer absorbing recent global supply shocks. However, because SPR data is highly dispersed-particularly outside the US-the market may be underestimating a significant structural shift.

According to the latest Morgan Stanley research note, global strategic stock draws are currently running at 2.5mb/d across the April–June window, but are on track to fall sharply to 0.7mb/d in July and August 📉.

A bottom-up reconciliation of the data reveals four critical structural arguments:

1️⃣ The "Paper vs. Physical" Volume Discrepancy

The Headline Allocation: The IEA expanded its total package contribution to 426 mb (which includes non-SPR production-increase commitments from Canada and Mexico). Documented country-level strategic releases from Argus and Platts sum to 350mb.

The Actual Lifted Volume: Only 150mb of strategic stocks have been physically released through May 25, yielding a daily delivery rate of 2.3mb/d.

The 🇪🇺 European Shortfall: This tracking gap (compared to IEA claims of 2.5-3mb/d) exists because several European nations have announced releases with zero observable follow-through in public newsflow. Germany (19.4mb), France (14.6mb), and the UK (14.0mb) represent a massive 63mb pool of "announced but undelivered" barrels.

2️⃣ Japan's Invisible "Ghost Barrels" Matching the US

Public commentary heavily over-indexes on US drawdowns, but the global SPR program is overwhelmingly dominated by two countries.
In gross volume terms, 🇯🇵 Japan's 99mb commitment is nearly equal to the US's 132.9mb contracted volume. Through May, both nations have physically moved 50mb each.

Crucially, Japan's barrels are sold directly to four named domestic refiners (ENEOS, Idemitsu, Cosmo Oil, Taiyo Oil), making them entirely invisible to standard ocean cargo trackers. Additionally, South Korea has augmented its 22.5mb IEA release with a separate KNOC swap program lending 8mb to local refiners.

3️⃣ The Mechanical Bottleneck of US Drawdowns

US SPR draws hit a record 1.4mb/d in mid-May, but this pace is physically unsustainable. The DOE explicitly warned in its Tranche 4 RFP that "as SPR inventory is depleted, rates into the terminals will degrade."

SPR crude is drawn by injecting water into salt caverns to displace the oil. In 2022, the US draw peaked at 1mb/d when inventories were at 600mb. The current 1.4mb/d pace is pushing a system that sits at just 365mb.

Expect the US lift rate to moderate to 1.0-1.2mb/d in June–July and 0.7-0.9mb/d in August, physically delaying 5–15mb of Tranche 4 deliveries into September. Furthermore, Tranche 4 saw a lower subscription rate of 58%, leaving 39mb of the original 172mb pledge unawarded unless a 5th tender or re-offer occurs.

4️⃣ Reconciling the Hard "July Cliff

Tracked monthly draws will hold at 75–80mb through June, then plummet to 22mb in July and 20mb in August - representing a drastic 60mb step-down from the Q2 pace. This occurs because Japan Phase 2 ends, South Korea's share is complete, Spain's balance is delivered by mid-June, and Hungary's program expires June 30.

Whether this cliff remains hard or soft depends entirely on three variables:
🌑 A US Tranche 5 Announcement:
Highly conditional on Hormuz geopolitics; a peace agreement means it likely won't go ahead.
🌑 A Second Coordinated IEA Release: Highly unlikely, as member governments have not reached a consensus.
🌑 European Follow-Through: Whether the untracked, stagnant commitments from Germany, France, and Italy finally materialize physically.

We are long $USO and $BRNT

[Hunter Biden @HunterBiden]

@SoundDobad I know this may sound petty, but I can’t stand it when people put photoshop a meth pipe in my mouth. A crack pipe doesn’t have that little bowl at the end. This is why we can’t trust AI. Please make the appropriate edit. Thank you for your attention to this matter.

[Kuppy @hkuppy]

I’m sure that most of you will hate this one and disagree with me, which is why I’m probably gonna be proven right…👇��

[Volte-Face Investments @VolteFaceInvest]

Truly this is the regulatory equivalent of not just burning the furniture but burning the whole house to stay warm.

[Polymarket @Polymarket]

NEW: Fidelity lowers the minimum account requirement for the SpaceX IPO from as high as $500,000 to just $2,000.

[AllThingsVentured @AllVentured]

The structural shift higher in crude inventories after 2014 is mostly due to shale boom infrastructure and not usable inventory.

20 mil+ barrels alone are pipe-fill from pipelines added since the shale boom started. Add in storage tanks and required 'days of use' buffer inventory to meet demand and keep a much larger network flowing and you get the rest of the structural upward shift in US commercial inventories.

I don't pretend to know exactly where operational minimums are but I suspect we are going to find out in the coming months.

[Roberto Rios @peruvian_bull]

you'll never guess how much M2 Money supply is up by in the last 6 years...

[Volte-Face Investments @VolteFaceInvest]

Just a thought...

Using my best *estimates* the UK and France which promised 14 million barrels each of SPR #oil have basically either released that or fully scheduled those remaining releases in the very near term. The SPR supplies to physical purchasers therefore are likely to start peeling off and dropping soon...

[Volte-Face Investments @VolteFaceInvest]

I love this headline. Oil loaded in February keeps escaping slowly. Also all the ships are trapped and will bring a wall of crude that means the Hormuz closure is no big deal.

This #oil gets counted 10x a month it seems to me...

[Energy Headline News @OilHeadlineNews]

More oil escapes Hormuz, keeping traders guessing - Reuters

[Volte-Face Investments @VolteFaceInvest]

should have been done years ago. No reason can't buy ships with a decent spread of spares for them, especially if it locks in Allies to use weapon systems etc.

[Naval News @navalnewscom]

The United States may be on the verge of an unprecedented step: procuring major naval vessels from allied shipbuilders in Japan and South Korea to help address growing capacity constraints in the U.S. naval industrial base 🇺🇸 🇯🇵 🇰🇷
By @TakahashiKosuke
https://t.co/ZewRy7jQEo

[Volte-Face Investments @VolteFaceInvest]

lucky inflation is going down fast

[Craig Fuller 🛩🚛🚂⚓️ @FreightAlley]

Trucking spot rates have never moved up this fast, ever - including early COVID.

The weekly average for truckload spot rates moves to a new all-time high of $3.71/mile.

It took 43 weeks for spot rates to increase by $1.38/mile during early COVID (April - Feb 2021).

It has taken only 29 weeks to achieve the same increase (Nov 2025 - June 2026).

[Volte-Face Investments @VolteFaceInvest]

added some more $DVN this morning.

I know the Hormuz is completely fixed at this point and we've moved on to AI but I'm

[Volte-Face Investments @VolteFaceInvest]

see everything is fixed!

All Israel has to do is....

[Energy Headline News @OilHeadlineNews]

IRAN'S REVOLUTIONARY GUARDS SAY THE REGION WILL NEVER BE STABLE UNLESS ISRAEL WITHDRAWS FROM 'OCCUPIED AREAS' IN LEBANON - STATE MEDIA

[Benny Johnson @bennyjohnson]

How are Democrats cheating in L.A.?

Let me show you…

There are 26 registered voters at this toilet in Los Angeles.

I’m not kidding. I have the voter records. See for yourself. The only thing here is a stinky port-a john inside an empty parking lot.

No homes. No mailboxes. No businesses. Yet TWENTY SIX ‘people’ are casting ballots here.

Straight-up voter fraud out in the open. This just a glimpse of what’s happening under Gavin Newsom.

This is why California desperately needs Voter ID — and we must pass the Save Act NOW.

[HFI Research @HFI_Research]

Oil algos are so dumb, they see Trump post Iran and peace in the same post and immediately sell oil without realizing there’s nothing.

[AG @AGHamilton29]

I am someone who has spent a lot of time debunking and pushing back on false fraud claims, but there is just no reasonable explanation for the way and speed at which California counts ballots.

[Volte-Face Investments @VolteFaceInvest]

Just sell more $STRC at like a 12% yield and buy

[Watcher.Guru @WatcherGuru]

JUST IN: Michael Saylor's 'Strategy' now has an $11.5 billion unrealized loss on its Bitcoin investment.

[Ancient History Hub @AncientHistorry]

Around 1,950 years ago in Pompeii, a weaver named Successus fell in love with a barmaid named Iris.

She did not love him back.

We know this because his rival, a man named Severus, decided to humiliate him publicly. He grabbed something sharp and carved this into a wall for the whole city to read:

"Successus the weaver loves the innkeeper's slave girl named Iris. She does not care about him at all. But he begs her to have pity on him. His rival wrote this. Goodbye."

Imagine walking to work and seeing that with your name on it.

Successus found it. And instead of letting it go, he carved his reply directly underneath:

"Envious one, why do you get in the way? Yield to a man who is better looking and being treated very unfairly."

Severus came back one more time to end it:

"I have spoken. I have written. You love Iris, but she does not love you."

Then, in 79 AD, Vesuvius erupted and buried the wall, the tavern, and the entire argument under 20 feet of ash. The thread was frozen mid-beef for almost two millennia until archaeologists dug it up and translated it.

We will never know who got the girl. We do not even know if any of the three survived.

Pompeii has over 11,000 of these inscriptions. Bar reviews. Bragging. Bad poetry. A bakery wall that says "Welcome, hungry people." Two guys fighting over a girl in the comments.

The technology changes. We do not.

[War Monitor @WarMonitors]

⚡️Video of the impact on Kuwaiti International airport by an Iranian Kamikaze Drone type Shahed-136