Massive oil shortages incoming, tanker traffic down 90% in March through the Strait of Hormuz

 

In other words, this would mean Trump is going to cut and run from the Persian Gulf just like he cut and ran from the Red Sea on May 6, 2025

 Trump Tells Aides He’s Willing to End War Without Reopening Hormuz: Administration officials assess that forcing the waterway back open would mean extending the military mission

WASHINGTON—President Trump told aides he’s willing to end the U.S. military campaign against Iran even if the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed, administration officials said, likely extending Tehran’s firm grip on the waterway and leaving a complex operation to reopen it for a later date.

In recent days, Trump and his aides assessed that a mission to pry open the chokepoint would push the conflict beyond his timeline of four to six weeks. He decided that the U.S. should achieve its main goals of hobbling Iran’s navy and its missile stocks and wind down current hostilities while pressuring Tehran diplomatically to resume the free flow of trade. If that fails, Washington would press allies in Europe and the Gulf to take the lead on reopening the strait, the officials said. ...

 

It's embarrassing to have a whiny little baby for president demonstrating everyday that he's not up to the job of being the leader of the free world

 Trump lashes out at UK and France, telling allies ‘the U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore’

... “You’ll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the U.S.A. won’t be there to help you anymore, just like you weren’t there for us. Iran has been, essentially, decimated. The hard part is done. Go get your own oil!,” he concluded. ... For its part, Tehran continues to demonstrate its ability to dominate and derail maritime traffic in the strait, hitting a fully laden Kuwaiti oil tanker in the anchorage area of Dubai’s port earlier Tuesday. 

J. D. Vance: Republicans have to break the Senate filibuster and destroy the country in order to save it

Remember when W said to CNN's Candy Crowley in December 2008 that he had abandoned free market principles in order to save the free market system?

We got Obama, a foreclosure crisis for six million, banks failed by the hundreds, and jobs didn't recover for six years and five months.

Why is it always the Republicans with these paraprosdokians?  

 

Trump says "we will conclude our lovely ‘stay’ in Iran by blowing up and completely obliterating all of their Electric Generating Plants, Oil Wells and Kharg Island (and possibly all desalinization plants!)"

 Trump says U.S. will destroy Iran’s oil wells, Kharg Island without deal to ‘immediately’ reopen Hormuz Strait

He thinks this is a bargaining chip instead of a requirement.

Fed chair Jerome Powell didn't say the oil shock will be transitory, but he might as well have

 

 ... Powell said raising rates now could have negative effects on the economy later. He noted that Fed rate moves have a lagged impact on the economy, so tightening here wouldn’t help the inflationary impact of the Iran war.

“By the time the effects of a tightening in monetary policy take effect, the oil price shock is probably long gone, and you’re weighing on the economy at a time when it’s not appropriate. So the tendency is to look through any kind of a supply shock,” he added. ...

More.

Mistaken yet again.

We have permanently higher prices across the board as a result of the COVID shock. 

Strategic victory for Iran (and China): Iranian control of the Strait of Hormuz is the primary result of the U.S.-Israeli war on Iran so far

... So far in March, the first full month of war, barely six vessels per day on average have traversed the narrow waterway connecting the Persian Gulf to the world, in either direction. That compares with about 135 a day in normal times, according to ship-tracking data compiled by Bloomberg.

Over that time, 80% of the small number of oil tankers exiting the strait have been Iranian — or belong to countries with which it is on cordial terms, the figures show. ...

Out of the 110 individual ships that left the gulf this month, more than 36% were sanctioned Iranian ships or part of the so-called dark fleet serving Tehran, data compiled by Bloomberg show. For oil tankers, 21 out of 35 that have exited had direct Iranian ties — but most of the remainder went to nations with whom Tehran has a friendly relationship. 

Until this war, one long-held assumption around Hormuz was that Iran would never attempt to close the strait, for fear of risking its own exports, a vital economic lifeline. In fact, ship-tracking data suggest that Tehran’s oil has continued to flow — almost entirely to China — even as other ships are stranded and producers in the region have been left scrambling for alternatives or forced to stop producing as storage fills up.

Iran exported roughly 1.8 million barrels a day this month, a nearly 8% increase from its average over 2025, according to figures from data intelligence firm Kpler as of March 26. That likely facilitated hundreds of millions of dollars of oil revenue for Tehran, a Bloomberg News analysis shows. ...

More. 

Another impediment to human life in orbit, and on the moon or Mars

 

Space conditions hamper sperm's ability to navigate toward egg...

 

 ... Sperm in microgravity still move, they just cannot find their way. The function that appears to be disrupted is navigation, the ability to orient and move with purpose toward a destination. ... 

If the world had any brains it would skip the Semite wars in the Middle East over oil and switch back to coal while transitioning to nuclear and renewables

Known coal reserves are all over the place and can power the world three times longer than known oil reserves at current consumption rates.

 

South Korea, Japan, China, and India can more easily switch right now to coal from the LNG lost due to the Iran war, Taiwan, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Vietnam, and the Philippines not so much.

 

This Is What Happens When the Gas Runs Out...

  

... India is another major importer of Middle Eastern L.N.G. that is likely to pivot significantly to coal, according to Wood Mackenzie. It has vast domestic reserves, and since the outbreak of the war, New Delhi has issued directives to maximize coal-fired output, ordering coal plants to operate at full capacity for three months starting in April. 

 

China likewise possesses huge domestic coal reserves, which, alongside gas piped in from Russia and a world-leading wind and solar fleet tied to the world’s largest energy storage network, have shielded the country from the worst of the L.N.G. supply shocks. ...

 

 

The latest UKMTO JMIC Advisory on 3/29 indicates 12 tankers transited the Strait of Hormuz in the last 7 days vs. 2 previously, 78 through the Bab al-Mandab Strait vs. 130 previously

 Persian Gulf Activity: 1.7/day last week vs. 0.3/day prior week

Red Sea Activity: 11.1/day last week vs. 18.6/day prior week 

JMIC Advisory Mar 29

JMIC Advisory Mar 22

Cry me a river about Iran's water

 The destruction in the early hours of June 6 [2023] of Ukraine’s massive Nova Kakhovka dam on the Dnieper River is a dangerous escalation of the war between Ukraine and Russia. It risks massive human and ecological consequences to communities downstream being hit by vast floodwaters, and also threatens a potentially catastrophic nuclear accident. World leaders are also calling it a war crime. ...

Kakhovka Dam, one of the largest in Europe, was built in the late 1950s to provide hydroelectric power, irrigation water, and improved navigation on the Dnieper River which flows from Russia through Belarus and Ukraine before emptying into the Black Sea. When full—and it was full when it was destroyed—the reservoir contains 18 cubic kilometers (nearly 5 trillion gallons) of water. That’s around four times the volume of California’s largest reservoir, the Shasta reservoir, and about half the volume of Lake Mead, the largest reservoir in the United States. The reservoir behind the dam also supplies critical cooling water to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, and feeds water into the North Crimea Canal, delivering nearly 80% of Crimea’s water. ...

Water and water systems have been the targets of attacks from the beginning of this war. Researchers have documented more than 50 such attacks on dams, water supply systems, city water treatment plants, pipelines, and other facilities. At the beginning of the war, the Russians destroyed a small dam blocking water flows to Crimea. And civilian water treatment and delivery systems have been widely attacked by the Russians, cutting water supplies and sanitation services for hundreds of thousands of people. Meanwhile, the Ukrainians cut levees to flood areas north of Kyiv to halt the initial Russian armored assault on the capital. But until now, there had been nothing as massive or devastating as this event. 

Attacks on dams are war crimes, as explicitly noted in Article 56 of Protocol I and Article 15 of Protocol II of the 1977 Protocols to the Geneva Conventions. These international laws prohibit attacks on infrastructure “containing dangerous forces” including explicitly “dams” and “dykes” if such attacks “may cause the release of dangerous forces and consequent severe losses among the civilian population.” Despite these prohibitions, conflicts over water and attacks on water systems are on the rise, with a dramatic increase in the past two decades.

There is precedent for Russian destruction of dams on the Dnieper River. In August 1941, during World War II, the retreating Soviet Army destroyed another dam on the Dnieper at Zaporizhzhia, the Dnieper Dam, to prevent it from falling into the hands of the advancing Nazis. At the time it was the largest dam in the world. The subsequent flooding reportedly killed tens of thousands of people downstream. ...

More.

 

 Trump threatens Iran's water supply in astonishing 'war crime' escalation as defiant Tehran tears up nuclear treaty

 

Laying waste to Iran would solve a number of problems. 

 

Let me guess, none of these are on CENTCOM's target list

 

CENTCOM boasts hitting 10k+ targets in one month of war, and yet Iran continues to wage it successfully against Israel, the UAE, and others

 The point of war is to stop the enemy's ability to wage it.

That clearly has not happened in one month of operations.

The reason is because, despite all the sound and fury, the U.S. and Israel are not waging a real war.

War means destroying Iran's country utterly, depriving it of food and water, electricity and heat, shelter, income from oil, and imports of materials.

They can't bring themselves to do that. They don't have the nerve.

Worse, Iran is successfully depriving its neighbors of some of those things. 

Sending in boots on the ground in these unacceptable circumstances is simply playing with more soldiers' lives.

Get serious or go home. 

 

 

Diamond and Silk weren't too keen in January 2016 on Kelly Megyn hosting another Republican debate after the fat pigs debate in August 2015

Trump boycotted the January 28, 2016 debate in Des Moines, Iowa.

 

Yeah, well, what you get with the Kelly Megyn Approach is just more shapeshifting to make a buck

 Megyn Kelly: If Republicans Take The "Mark Levin Approach" In November, They Deserve What They're Going To Get

... You understand the sacrifice that our troops make and the risk they take when they sign up. I would submit to the jury, it is not to die in a war for Israel. ... 

Republicans were always going to lose in November, well before the Iran attack on Feb 28.

 

 

Silver is down 2.43% ytd per apmex, gold is up 4.04%

Silver:  $70.52 USD - ($1.76) USD -2.43% YTD

Gold:  $4,509.40 USD $175.10 USD 4.04% YTD
 

Your reminder that today's so-called conservatives look at US institutions and traditions as impediments, same as liberals do

I am sick of TSA's illegal searches and seizures, and of DHS' deadly incompetence in Minneapolis and at Barksdale AFB.

The author below lists four recent incidents of terrorism in the United States in support of funding DHS outside the filibuster so that this incompetence can continue!  

They're not keeping us safe!

Millions of illegals remain in America who were supposed to Remain in Mexico!

Fire them all! These post-911 innovations aren't working. 

 

Terrorism trumps America again:

Time for a Filibuster Carve-Out for Terrorism

J.T. Young, RealClearPolitics

Drone swarms of unknown origin numbering 12-15 interfered with B-52 attack runs to Iran at Barksdale AFB in Louisiana for four hours per incident the week of March 9

 Sophisticated drones attacked Louisiana’s Barksdale bomber base 

... Barksdale AFB does not have air defenses, nor does it have fighter jets that can take down drones.

The airbase does have some electronic countermeasures that were designed to disable GPS and the datalinks between the drones and their remote operators. The electronic countermeasures failed to work. ...

The drones could have come from a potential adversary, China being best equipped to produce a drone of the type that flew over Barksdale. From what has been observed, the drone design surpasses almost anything in the US arsenal.

What we know is that the drones had extraordinary range, could resist broad spectrum jamming, and featured non-commercial signal characteristics. Even more provocatively, the drones used various ingress and egress routes and operated in dispersed patterns, making traceability (via trying to triangulate on signals) virtually impossible.

We do not know if the drones transmitted information while they were over the base or stored information they transmitted later, or whether the drones may have had satellite links.

... realistically the US is years away from a real domestic counter drone capability.                                                                                                                                                                                                                Hot Air covered the story yesterday.

Oh, poor baby

 Trump: Thune, Johnson "Made My Job A Lot Harder"

Tanker traffic out of the Persian Gulf has been cut by 98% in one month because of the Iran War, effectively reducing the world's primary energy inputs through the Strait of Hormuz by 20%

The UAE is bypassing the Strait of Hormuz with 1.9 million barrels per day now coming out of Fujairah via its overland pipeline, and Saudi Arabia's overland pipeline west to Yanbu is moving about 4.5 million barrels per day out through the Red Sea, but that's not the 20 million barrels per day lost due to the war, and no LNG is moving at all.

Pakistan and Bangladesh get two thirds of their LNG from the Gulf, Taiwan gets one third of its LNG. Taiwan says its has eleven days' supply remaining. Many others are also severely affected by the cut-off of LNG from Qatar. About 20 LNG tankers are trapped in the Gulf, half the global fleet available for charter.

Meanwhile Iran has increased export of its oil from 1 million barrels per day in February to 2 million in March, 90% of which goes to China, and Iran is now charging tolls to vessels to exit the Gulf along its coast, which occurs only under Iranian escort. 

 

 

If JP Morgan analysts are correct, April will be a month of rolling oil delivery stops from the Persian Gulf starting in E/SE Asia and East Africa April 1, Europe April 10, North America April 15, and Australia April 20

 

Trump again makes new record high disapproval and record low approval in Real Clear Politics average: 56.8% and 41.0%

 

Donald Trump . . .

 

The Houthis have joined Iran by restarting hostilities against Israel

Trump couldn't finish the Houthis off last year, and now they come back to bite.

Oil tankers filling at Saudi Arabia's Yanbu port in the Red Sea because it was too dangerous in the Persian Gulf may soon have nowhere to fill.

All because Donald Trump has been mistaken twice in the Middle East.

The energy crisis will soon be a global energy catastrophe, leading to an inflation catastrophe, leading to an economic catastrophe. And maybe a world war.

 

 

Tiger needs a new d r i v e r

 Tiger Woods arrested for DUI after rollover car crash, Florida sheriff says

 

DHS will remain shutdown, GOP-controlled U.S. House passes 60-day continuing resolution to fund DHS, ignoring the plan passed by the GOP-controlled Senate earlier

 The Senate returns in 2 weeks to take up the matter.

Kristi Noem did a really fantastic job running DHS, didn't she?

 

 

GOP-controlled US House says Nay Nay to GOP-controlled Senate bill funding DHS, meaning more DHS shutdown, et cetera et cetera et cetera!

 

 TSA funding update: House GOP spikes DHS funding proposal, extending shutdown that’s caused delays

... The stopgap measures advanced out of the House Rules Committee on Friday, teeing up a vote as soon as later this evening. ... Any such effort would need to go back to the Senate for final approval and would extend the shutdown. It is also not likely to pass in the Senate, where most lawmakers have already left town. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., on Friday called the proposal “dead on arrival.” ... 

Keystone Kash e-mail hacked by Iran

It's good to know that the head of the FBI has everything under control lol. 

 Iran-linked hackers breach FBI director’s personal email, publish excerpts online

 

 

Reality has a funny way of jamming seemingly interminable rosy expectations

 Markets now see the Fed’s next move as a potential rate hike as inflation fears mount

... Traders in the futures market pushed the probability of a rate increase by the end of 2026 to 52% on Friday morning, the first time it has crossed the 50% threshold, according to the CME Group FedWatch tool. ... 

 

Senate Democrats get partial win, bill funding DHS passes without further funding for ICE and parts of Customs and Border Protection, which were massively funded last year by the Big Ugly Bill

Senate advances DHS funding bill, tees up House vote to end shutdown as TSA airport lines stretch 

... After weeks of Republicans fighting Democrats on their calls to remove funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement from any potential deal, the bill does exactly that. It would fund all of DHS except for ICE and parts of Customs and Border Protection, though it does not include the changes to ICE’s immigration enforcement practices that Democrats had demanded. 

... The shutdown began in February in the weeks after federal agents shot and killed two U.S. citizens in Minneapolis as part of a federal immigration crackdown. Democrats demanded changes in ICE and DHS more broadly and refused to fund the department. ...

Global oil in storage was 8,210 million barrels to start 2026 with consumption at 105 mbpd, meaning a 78-day cushion, analyst says we're moving from absorption phase which began Feb 28 to fragility now

 Brent oil tops $110 again after Chinese ships are turned away from Strait of Hormuz

... “The oil market did not underreact to the disruption in the Strait of Hormuz; it absorbed it,” said Paola Rodriguez-Masiu, chief oil analyst at Rystad Energy.

“For nearly four weeks, markets have shown remarkable resilience … supported by a combination of pre-war surplus, crude-on-water, and policy barrels that provided a temporary buffer and kept prices contained. That phase is now ending,” she said.

According to Rystad, the global system has shifted from “buffered to fragile” after weeks of supply losses and inventory drawdowns, leaving little room to absorb further shocks.

Nearly 17.8 million barrels per day of oil and fuel flows through the Strait of Hormuz have been disrupted, the firm estimated, with close to 500 million barrels of total liquids lost so far.

 

TACO Trump threatens Iran to hurry up, then gives them more time

 Trump says Iranian negotiators ‘better get serious soon, before it is too late’ (0648 hours)

Trump extends pause on attacking Iran energy facilities to April 6 (1619 hours)

 

U.S. Treasury yields are ringing the alarm at Mad King Ludwig

 

Trump's whopper of the week: The ten vessels Iran let through Hormuz on March 22-23 were a present to the United States lol

 Trump says Iran let 10 oil ships through Strait of Hormuz as ‘present’ to U.S.

... “That was three days ago, and I didn’t think much about it,” he said. ...                                     

No kidding.

This cockamamie idea sounds like it was thought up by Howard Lutnick.

The vessels went to China and India, and transited along the coast of Iran after passing between Qeshm and Larak and did not take the usual central passage, so they probably had to pay tolls. 

I wonder if they sent the bill to Mexico? 🤣

Sounds more like a gift to our competitors and enemies than to us. 

UKMTO reported ten transits two days ago, but not all were oil, and some were outbound and some inbound; this summary is probably what someone showed to Trump and they just assumed it was all oil outbound when it was not: 

 

Initial Claims updated one eternity later

The Trump administration thinks so little of its one truly bright spot that it makes us wait to enjoy it.

Raw claims average below 195k in March to date, only the third month averaging below 200k in his second term to date.

You'd think that they'd be out there trumpeting these continued historically low numbers, but it is evident that they don't really care.

It's political malpractice. 

 

The latest JMIC Advisory Note says transits through the Strait of Hormuz average one per day for Mar 24-25

 

One man ruins the world, except for Russia

 

Trump's dysfunctional government can't even get the weekly Initial Claims for Unemployment chart at FRED updated on time

 This happens repeatedly under Trump and his loser appointees.

We're still waiting for today's update even though the news release came out as usual at 0830 hours. 

 

 

Trump average disapproval at Real Clear Politics hit a new high 56.7% yesterday

 

After telling you that war is peace, get ready for the Ministry of Truth to say that the Save America Act about voter ID is a fiscal issue permitting passage under reconciliation

 In the Senate, Thune resurrects idea of reconciliation 

... Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, posted, “It’s hard to imagine how the SAVE America Act could be passed through reconciliation. And by ‘hard’ I mean ‘essentially impossible.’”

Lee, a member of the Budget Committee, has led the push for the chamber to debate SAVE and even pursue a so-called talking filibuster to pass the bill via a simple majority. ...

Sen. Rick Scott, R-Fla., said that “I don’t see any way that any part of the SAVE America Act [with] any teeth gets included in a reconciliation package.”

“On top of that, I think it’s very difficult to pass a reconciliation package. We don’t have big tax cuts coming. That’s really what got the last one done,” Scott said. “I think it’s going to be very difficult to get you know 50 of us to agree on something.”

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., who opposed last year’s reconciliation measure, said, “It would seem on its face, because there’s so much policy involved, that it would be difficult to do.” 

“It’s kind of interesting to see if they’re just going to be pushing maybe some of the funding that could fit within reconciliation. But I don’t know how the policy fits in there.”

Senate Appropriations Chair Susan Collins, R-Maine, who has been part of hashing out the agreement between Democrats and the White House to reopen DHS, also declined to support reconciliation, saying “I don’t think that’s a good approach.” ...

The chamber’s conservative House Freedom Caucus called the idea “gaslighting” from Senate Republican leadership. ... 

 

 

Michael Moore's human molotov cocktail sets the world on fire

 Iran war is a ‘catastrophe,’ G7 ministers warn — but there’s little they can do to stop it

... “To make it crystal clear, this war is a catastrophe for the world’s economies,” Boris Pistorius, Germany’s defense minister warned early Thursday.

“European partners and Germany highlighted from the beginning that we have not been consulted before. Nobody asked us before. It’s not our war,” he told reporters during a visit to Australia. ...

 

 Michael Moore says Trump is a ‘human Molotov cocktail’ supporters get to throw

  ... “His ideology is called Donald J. Trump. He believes in Donald J. Trump. If it’s good for him, then it’s a good thing. Not good for him, it’s a bad thing,” Moore said. ...

Holds up. 

Trump provides 77.3 million who voted for him an out, acknowledges he appointed Supreme Court justices who now sicken him lol

 

What's good for the goose is good for the gander.

 

Trump says Justices Barrett, Gorsuch ‘sicken me’ after Supreme Court tariff ruling

President Donald Trump on Wednesday criticized two of his Supreme Court appointees — Justices Neil Gorsuch and Amy Coney Barrett — for voting with other justices in the bombshell 6-3 decision that ruled his signature reciprocal tariffs were illegal, saying they sickened him and are “bad for our country.”

“Two of the people that voted for that, I appointed,” Trump said at the National Republican Congressional Committee dinner at Union Station in Washington, D.C., without naming the two justices. ...

Trump Job Approval just keeps making new lows at Real Clear Politics, now down to 41.1% from 41.3% just yesterday

Trump's Job Disapproval is at a new record high 56.5%.

 

Roger Kimball polishes a turd

 ... Some say Trump exaggerates and overstates things. Perhaps, on occasion, he is given to mild hyperbole. But consider, sed contra, this masterpiece of understatement: “The United States of America has beaten and completely decimated Iran, both militarily, economically, and in every other way.” The Roman practice of decimation, rarely employed, was a brutal punishment for cowardice. The offending unit would be divided into groups of ten. One man from each would be selected by lot. The unlucky ticket holder would then be killed by his colleagues.

What the US and Israel have visited upon the Iranian regime is far more extensive than decimation. Most of its leadership has been erased. ...

More. 

Trump outmanuevered: Iran decision to let vessels from non-hostile nations through the Strait of Hormuz will make any U.S. military action interfering with that to blame for disruptions

 Oil prices fall as Iran signals safe passage for ‘non-hostile’ ships through Strait of Hormuz

... Iran’s mission to the United Nations said Tuesday that “non-hostile vessels” would be able to pass through the strategically vital Strait of Hormuz, provided they coordinate “with the competent Iranian authorities.”

The social media post appears to establish a protocol that has emerged in recent days, with some ships from China, India and Pakistan able to pass through the waterway as Iran flexes control over it. ...

Trump disapproval makes new high 56.3% in Real Clear Politics average, approval makes new low 41.3%

 Here.

Trump threatened to bomb Iranian power infrastructure if the Strait of Hormuz wasn't open by last night, and the latest UKMTO JMIC Advisory Note indicates that it is not open

 Normal transits are about 138/day vs. four on March 22 and six on March 23.

 

For all the crazies who think the Joos are behind the U.S. attack on Iran, make room in your conspiracy theories now for the Saudis, too, lol

 

Iran is charging $2 million in protection money in exchange for safe passage of some vessels through the Strait of Hormuz

 Not only do the Iranians control the Strait, they've turned it into a racket.

Vessels have been tracked passing between Qeshm and Larak, presumably for visual inspection, instead of through the main track of the Strait of Hormuz. 

... More than 20 vessels of over 10,000 dwt have thus far made the detour, which goes between Iran’s Qeshm and Larak Islands. ...

More. 

 

The Iranian parliament Speaker says Trump is lying, uttering fake news, there have been no negotiations lol

Volume in stock and oil futures surged minutes before Trump’s Iran post

Iran Media Denies Direct Talks After US Holds Off Energy Strikes...