https://x.com/hormuzletter/status/2095672090342904286?s=46

The article highlights that China's transition away from oil is no longer a future forecast, but an active market disruption. A downstream demand risk for global crude producers.

U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright raised eyebrows in energy markets Wednesday when he said more oil exports left the Middle East on Monday—between the Strait of Hormuz and alternative routes—than before the beginning of the Iran war.

While crude oil exports have indeed risen in recent weeks—at least until an escalation of U.S. and Iranian attacks on Tuesday that slowed exports yet again—analytics firms that track tanker traffic rebutted Wright’s claims.

As the U.S. has worked to carve out a path for oil tankers that hews closer to Oman, more oil shippers are using smaller tankers to move through the narrow Strait of Hormuz and then transferring their volumes to larger tankers in the broader Arabian Sea, a process called ship-to-ship transfers.

That process can be time consuming over days, and it appears that Wright is adding up transfers over multiple days into a single day, said Samir Madani, co-founder of TankerTrackers.com, jokingly calling it “mathemagics.”

Prior to the war, nearly 15 million barrels of crude oil routinely trekked the Strait of Hormuz—about 20 million barrels including other petroleum products. Wright seems to be counting products too. And, in terms of Wright’s mention of “bypass export pipelines,” Saudi Arabia, most notably, is now exporting between 3 million and 4 million barrels of oil each day through the Red Sea—which is under threat by the Yemeni Houthis—or the more circuitous Suez Canal.

Read more [paywall removed for Redditors]: https://fortune.com/2026/09/02/trump-more-oil-exited-middle-east-before-war-data-otherwise/?utm_source=reddit/

The book, "the end of the world is just the beginning" is what is being referenced

Hormuz implied traffic, Bab al Mandab, Singapore all down today. Malacca up slightly.

Sea of Oman to Arabian Sea Implied Dark Traffic:

This is all the oil traffic out to the Arabian sea minus 2.5mb (pre war output of Fujairah and Oman) to estimate the additional output of dark traffic out of Hormuz as well as any additional output from the ADCOP pipeline. Usual traffic should be around 21mb of crude and oil products.

DHT AMAZON - added to the 30th Aug data that popped up near India/Srilanka

Listing the actual ships and their draft/dwt as well as helps check if I messed up with double counts/fills 7.58-2.5 (oman/Fujairah)=5.08mb.

Data from: https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:63.3/centery:23.5/zoom:7

Bab al Mandab AIS on Traffic:

Oil products going out south from the Red Sea. Usual traffic is around 8mb. Note a lot of Saudi oil that used to go south is now going north. Its hard to tell as the Suez Canal traffic doesn't seem to have public easy to access data. Possibly 2-3mb going north from Yanbu. that still means the amount overall is down. The drop below is more from dropping Russian and other sources of usual oil going south out of the red sea.

Ships: OPAL,MELITE,BARQ,TIGER,SAGAR1,FOS MERCURY

Data from https://www.marinetraffic.com/en/ais/home/centerx:45.8/centery:12.7/zoom:8

Strait of Malacca:

Usual oil products throughput is 16.5 mb crude and 6mb oil products.

Ships: TORM HELGA,AGIOS FANOURIOS I,YUAN RUI YANG,XIN TONG YANG,UNIVERSAL PARTNER,QIU CHI,SERENGETI,SHOHO MARU

Data from https://tankermap.com/analytics/straits/malacca?unit=million_bbl_per_day

Singapore Oil Departures:

Note based on 2024 the average daily output in tonnes was 211,000 tonnes per day. I think 2025/2026 is much higher but they don't yet have official data.

Data from https://tankermap.com/analytics/ports/singapore-oil?unit=million_bbl_per_daySea of Oman to Arabian Sea Implied Dark Traffic:

That article is everywhere and boring. It’s a good try but crude is still over 90.

Do the American people owe Trump a thank you for securing all that oil? Should the good be acknowledged with the bad?

The operational disruption to Kuwaiti crude export and upstream infrastructure has severely aggravated logistics passing through the Strait of Hormuz. While regional flows briefly hit a record 17 million barrels earlier in the week, preliminary tracking data indicates an immediate physical freeze, with daily commodity tanker transits plunging from a 10-day baseline average of 13 vessels down to just 4 active hulls on Wednesday. This is a minor disruption to physical crude supply balances which has sent Brent crude pressing toward $95 a barrel, with market analysts tracking a steep drop-off in active tanker tracking data alongside a sharp spike in crude price implied volatility as the industry evaluates potential inventory draws.

Are we locked into $100 Brent?

Source: South China Morning Post