As Trump weighs escalation or a deal, he's confronting a harsh reality — the Russia and Iran fronts are coalescing, and the tools to manage the next energy shock are disappearing week by week.
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1/ When the Hormuz MOU was announced, transit relief flowed to crude — not diesel, gasoline, or jet fuel. That gap is now the market's biggest vulnerability.
2/ Ukraine's systematic strikes on Russian refineries forced Moscow into a full ban on diesel exports — producers and traders alike. Russia is ~11% of global diesel supply!!!
3/ Refining margins — here and globally — are at record highs. Crack spreads are telling you refined products, not crude, are the real chokepoint right now.
4/ EIA / DOE itself is now flagging that Cushing, OK — the WTI crude delivery point — is at tank bottoms. Storage bottomed near 19M barrels in June, lowest since 2014, and has barely rebuilt since.
5/ The SPR is heading below 300 million barrels — territory we haven't seen in over 40 years. That's the shock absorber for the next disruption, and it's almost gone.
6/ China bought the world time, cutting imports by 4-5 million b/d at the peak of the shock. It's now re-entering the market — lifting fuel export curbs, restocking. That cushion may not be there next time.
7/ If Hormuz escalates again, the tools that existed in March — SPR headroom, Cushing storage, Chinese demand destruction — are shrinking every week.
8/ It's not just energy. The 10-year is near a two-month high at nearly 4.60%, and the 30-year has traded above 5% since July 7 — the bond market pricing in exactly the inflation risk this points to.
9/ At the pump: gasoline will likely rise above $4 again in days, diesel has already re-crossed $5.00 — both at or above levels last seen in 2022.
10/ Time to cut losses and make a deal. Markets are holding — but the tools to manage the next crisis are running out, and China may not bail us out again.
@marco_bonesi@MenchOsint I think the speech was a revelation about an alleged intervention in the 2020 elections (basically, he's going to launch his campaign for the midterm)
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@MargemSultejano@MenchOsint There was a Saudi king who threatened the Nixon administration with a second oil embargo and was then mysteriously assassinated and replaced by his brother...
@MenchOsint If that were to happen, the U.S. could use the Saudis to launch a ground operation along the Iranian coast, and they wouldn't have to put "boots on the ground"—which is what Trump seems to want to avoid.