Few have seen more in their energy careers than Amos Hochstein, and his intimate familiarity with the US SPR makes this qualified comment so important to understand:
"I don't know anyone who believes [the US SPR] can go below 300MM barrels."
Sitting at 349MM Bbls and drawing ~8MM Bbls/week, the market essentially has 6 weeks of safety buffer left, reinforcing the point that the WH did not anticipate the Strait remaining closed for 100+ days and front-loaded all of their emergency measures. We are hurtling into the wall at 150mph yet the 37 proclamations of "imminent peace" has lulled Wall Street into a profound sense of complacency. All signs point to "critical" in July.
We are seeing the US economy change right before our eyes.
The center of the country is producing freight, while the coasts are quieter.
This is a massive flip from the past two decades, where the coasts received imports from overseas and then shipped them into the middle of the country.
The old playbook was coast-inland. Now the volume story is Rust Belt + I-35, and that’s opening the door for intermodal in tweener lanes.
If shippers can get predictable cost, capacity and on-time service, mode matters a lot less. Are you seeing that shift in your network?
The strangest oil trade of 2026 isn't happening at sea.
It's 700 tanker trucks a day crossing the Iraq–Syria desert.
The biggest winner is a government that barely produces oil at all.
Hormuz shut → Iraq lost 90% of export revenue.
Baghdad will take ANY outlet.
So 2 land corridors opened: al-Waleed in Anbar (31 March) and Rabia/Yarubiyah (20 April) the latter sealed since 2013.
Destination: Baniyas, Syria's Mediterranean port. Then by sea to Europe.
The numbers are medieval and massive at once:
500–700 trucks/day, 30 tonnes each.
Baniyas unloading capacity up 30%, 120k bpd flowing. Baseline 150k bpd, target 350k.
Moving just 50k bpd of crude takes 1,000 trucks running nonstop, this is a pipeline made of wheels.
💰The economics
Here's the desperation premium: SOMO is paying $20–22 per barrel to move fuel oil by land.
By sea it costs cents.
Iraq signed for 650k tonnes/month anyway because the alternative isn't a cheaper route.... It's zero.
Damascus collects on every barrel: transit fees, storage, port charges, plus cheap Iraqi fuel.
At $2–3/bbl that's $8–13M/month, rising to $21–30M at full flow.
For al-Sharaa's empty treasury, possibly his most reliable hard-currency stream.
The worse Iraq's crisis gets, the more Syria earns.
The structural irony is that Iran shut Hormuz to punish its enemies.
Result, Iraqi oil money now flows to a Damascus government Tehran calls an adversary while Iraq, Iran's closest Arab partner, sits on life support.
Chokepoints don't choose their victims, Geography does.
"It's crazy...because it's not murder, it's not beating somebody..."
Texas Tech head coach Joey McGuire defends his QB Brendan Sorsby, who's under fire for gambling on his own team's football games:
Game 3 of the 2026 NBA Finals between the San Antonio Spurs and New York Knicks was the most-watched NBA Finals Game 3 in 28 years (since Bulls/Jazz in 1998), averaging 23.8 million viewers on ABC and ESPN. The audience peaked with 26.3 million viewers at 11:15 p.m. ET.
Game 4 tips off tonight at 8:30 p.m. ET on ABC.
Game windows and some TV designations for the 2026 SEC football season will be revealed tonight at 6 CT on @SECNetwork and ESPN2. SEC Network show will be 2 hours long (@CoachVenables scheduled to appear at approximately 7:40 CT), while ESPN2 show is just 1 hour. #Sooners
Record deal: The Chiefs are adding two years to Patrick Mahomes’ contract, tying him to Kansas City through the 2033 season at a value of $504.75 million, making it the first NFL deal valued at over a half-billion dollars, per @RapSheet and me.
Equity Sports CEO Chris Cabott, and Chiefs GM Brett Veach and his staff, put the finishing touches on the landmark agreement today.
The Top247 rankings have been updated…
Both Gabriel Osborne and Kaeden Penny have earned five-star status, several other #Sooners commits made moves, and one priority target shot up the rankings.
https://t.co/viMbjHA6Vz
SpaceX --4 times over subscribed. lots of money... But Cerebras was 20 times oversubscribed.. But much less money needed... Cerebras deal was a bust...remember...
We value SpaceX at $63 per share, a 53% discount to the upcoming IPO’s offering price.
Even giving SpaceX the benefit of the doubt in several key forecasts, only the most optimistic ‘Moonshot’ scenario approaches the IPO offering price. https://t.co/ibUZ4lUaWw
BREAKING: SpaceX plans to sell approximately 555.6 million shares at $135 per share in its upcoming IPO, according to new SEC filings.
At that price, the offering would raise $75 billion, making it the largest IPO in history by a wide margin.
This would value SpaceX at $1.77 trillion.