🇮🇷 Something extraordinary is happening in the Strait of Hormuz
Iran is still attacking ships, yet roughly 10.3 MILLION barrels of crude oil per day now appear to be making it through
At the same time, according to TankerTrackers founder Samir Madani, Iran's own major crude exports have effectively collapsed.
So how the hell is everyone else's oil getting out?
An entire “Arab dark fleet” has emerged: more than 100 tankers operating largely without AIS, shuttling oil from Gulf ports into the Gulf of Oman.
There, they transfer their cargo at sea to other tankers unwilling to risk entering Hormuz themselves.
And the money being made is INSANE!!
A tanker that might previously have cost around $50,000 a day to charter can now command roughly $1.25 MILLION A DAY.
Meanwhile, Samir says satellite imagery shows essentially no major Iranian crude loading activity at Kharg Island.
Before the war, Iran was exporting around 1.6 million barrels of crude per day.
Today, Samir says Iran can still move smaller quantities of refined products and LPG through alternative routes.
But the crude?
“There’s nothing happening right now in Iran. It’s just flat.”
That leaves us with one of the strangest realities of the Hormuz war:
Iran can threaten the world's most important oil chokepoint.
But right now, the oil still flowing through it largely belongs to everyone else.