If you read the press releases from the United States Central Command, you would know that Iran does not control the Strait of Hormuz. Let me quote: “since early May, U.S. forces have helped facilitate the successful transit of more than 800 commercial vessels and 380 million barrels of crude oil through the vital international trade corridor.”
Let me repeat those numbers. Actually it’s 825 commercial vessels and 380 million barrels of crude oil just since early May. That’s why oil prices have fallen nearly 40 percent. West Texas crude is priced at $71. About the same as it was one year ago, way before the Iran conflict. Stock markets are no longer dancing to the Iranian-Hormuz oil threat tune. Of course profits are breaking records. And profits are the mothers’ milk of stocks.
Yet there’s more to the story. There may be an oil production war developing with the weakening of OPEC. The United Arab Emirates wants to move from around 2 million barrels a day to as much as 5 million.
How about Iraq? Remember Iraq? Well they’re going to move from just over a million barrels per day to somewhere around 4 million to 5 million barrels per day. The Saudis are diverting oil exports through their East-West pipeline to the Red Sea. The UAE and other countries have shifted their tankers to the Southern Hormuz channel adjacent to Oman’s coastline. This is killing the Iranian strategy of bottling up the world economy.
The United States, meanwhile, is moving toward 14 million barrels per day. And the Energy Information Administration is now forecasting that worldwide crude production and other trade flows will rebound to near pre-conflict levels by the end of the year.
Hundreds of oil tankers are still sitting in the upper part of the Arabian Gulf. And they are filled to the brim with oil that will soon hit world markets. And meanwhile, while oil supplies are rapidly recovering, Chinese oil demand has plunged as a result of their continued economic slump. All of this shows how Iran’s supposed Hormuz oil weapon has been neutered.
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