President Trump threatens new strikes against Iran
US President Donald Trump threatened new strikes on Iran today and said that the country had taken too long to negotiate a deal (link). The US military had said earlier that it struck Iranian air defences, ground control stations and surveillance radar sites in what it described as a “proportional response” after Iran shot down over Hormuz a US helicopter, whose two crewmembers were rescued. A tanker was also struck by a missile in the Gulf of Oman today, in what was reported as possible US strike to enforce the blockade (link).
No material improvement in oil & gas flows
Reports of significant increase in traffic via Hormuz are not corroborated by the latest UBS Evidence Lab data (> Access Dataset) which shows only four oil & gas vessels crossing the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday, two in each direction. The June average is still in line with April-May at ~3 and still significantly lower than February’s daily average of nearly 50 crossings. On a volume basis, exports were up to 1.6Mboe/d yesterday but are still only at 1.2Mboe/d so far in June, close to the 1.3Mboe/d average in May (Figure 4). Flows through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait bounced back slightly above average yesterday (Figure 11).
But an improvement in crude loadings; bypass volumes remain high
There has been an improvement in crude loadings ex-Iran in the Gulf. Crude loadings have averaged 1.7Mb/d, up from ~0.5Mb/d on average over Apr-May, with higher loadings primarily in the UAE. There is also a ~0.5Mb/d uptick in products loadings vs. Apr-May (Figure 7 and Figure 10). This suggests that volumes may be slightly higher, albeit still very far from normal. Meanwhile in Iran, the June average is down to <0.5Mb/d after no crude loaded yesterday, slightly above the May average of 0.3Mb/d but below April (1.5Mb/d) and March (1.7Mb/d) levels (see Figure 8). Preliminary data indicates that crude loadings at ports outside the Strait (Yanbu in Saudi Arabia and Fujairah in the UAE) remained high at 6.1Mb/d and have averaged 6.8Mb/d so far in June, just above the expected 6.5Mb/d, as Yanbu is now up to 4.7Mb/d (Figure 9). The May average was 5.9Mb/d, slightly below the April average of 6.3Mb/d. This compares to 5.2Mb/d in March and ~2Mb/d in February.
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