As the war in the Persian Gulf continues to throttle traffic through the Strait of Hormuz down to a relative trickle compared with pre-war levels, it’s striking that oil prices have not risen more sharply despite around 13 million barrels per day of supply being taken off the table.
Leaving aside the never-ending stream of headlines and Trump tweets hammering oil traders going long, in the physical world, there have been two major factors effectively acting as Atlas and holding together the balance of oil and fuel supplies, at least for now: China and the United States.
According to an analysis from JP Morgan, net U.S. seaborne oil and fuel exports have risen by 3.8 million barrels per day in year-on-year terms in the last 30 days.
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