Middle East tanker transits August 18-24, 2026: Strait of Hormuz 2.3/day, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait 13.3/day

 

 

https://www.ukmto.org/-/media/ukmto/products/update-089-jmic-advisory-note-25-august.pdf?rev=2ead1ce051fa4c21be1cc8daf7925ef4

VGENX vs. SPX since May 1984

Vanguard Energy Opportunities Fund Investor Shares average annual since inception 05/23/1984 through July 2026:

10.01% (last 10 years 7.71%, 5 years 19.86%, 3 years 19.06%, 1 year 32.72%!) 

S&P 500 average per annum nominal, dividends reinvested, same period:

12.01% 

OK, I charted four months of Strait of Hormuz tanker transits as reported in UKMTO JMIC Updates even though some people have thought the data is . . . Wei Tu Lo

 It is what it is.

You know the score. Gasoline isn't $5, but it isn't a buck seventy-five, either.

Meanwhile, the US Navy is spending vast sums everyday to maintain whatever it is we're supposed to be calling this black hole into which we are flushing billion$ down the drain.

 

 

Middle East tanker transits August 16-22, 2026: Strait of Hormuz 2.4/day, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait 12.6/day

 

Middle East tanker transits August 13-19, 2026: Strait of Hormuz 1.9/day, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait 11.0/day

WTI is $86

Brent is $94

Gasoline averages $4.10

Diesel averages $5.59

 

U.S. Petroleum Balance Sheet, Total Stocks, year over year:

Jan 23  +107.7 million barrels

Aug 14 -127.8 million barrels

 

 

Adjusted for inflation, March 1994 diesel for $1.10 should have cost $2.50 in July 2026, but it averaged $4.95 instead

 And we're pushing $5.50 in August.

 

Middle East tanker transits Aug 11-17, 2026: Strait of Hormuz 1.4/day, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait 8.7/day

 JMIC UPDATE 086:

... IRGC attacks, hailing, and routing pressure continue, particularly for AIS-on vessels [in the Strait of Hormuz]. ... Vessels stationary for extended periods, or maintaining AIS-on while static, may still face elevated targeting risk [in the Arabian Gulf]. ... AIS-off operations at Yanbu remain the established norm. The AIS-off berth and waiting-area posture has been sustained without interruption for six weeks. ... AIS-off operations at Yanbu berths, waiting areas and approaches are highly likely to remain elevated. ...  

Middle East tanker transits August 9-15, 2026: Strait of Hormuz 1.3/day, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait 9.6/day

 

TLT and IEF in the bond drawdown news

SPR isn't the only thing in drawdown lol, down 49.5% since the beginning of 2022. Oil. Pffft. Who needs it, right?

Long term bond investors are getting killed, if any are left still standing. The article linked says most fixed income investors have gone ultra short.

Meanwhile the personal saving rate, which includes monies being socked away in retirement accounts, has plunged to 2.7% in June 2026. A prosperous people saves. Ours is doing something else. 

 

Imagine being down 6.7% per year for five years straight in the "safe" part of your portfolio, or even 1%, when inflation has been raging at 4.5% on average. Real return is far, far more negative.

Here:

... The iShares 20+ Year Treasury Bond ETF (TLT), for example, has posted an average annual return of negative 6.7% over the past five years, while its 7-10 Year Treasury Bond ETF (IEF) has posted an average annual decline of 1%. ...

 

GAO said in 2022 the SPR was in very good condition, Trump's Energy Department came into office saying it wasn't, recent drawdowns only compound the problems in the 60 salt caverns

The damn thing will probably collapse before they're done.

Maybe instead of a ballroom next to the White House they can build some new tanks instead. 

SPR depletion raises questions about integrity of caverns that store oil

... The Government Accountability Office said in a May report that “repeated partial drawdowns followed by refill can leach a single part of a cavern repeatedly, leading to undesirable shapes.” 

The majority of the SPR’s caverns were found to be in “very good condition” after the 2022 drawdown, according to the GAO.

“However, every drawdown cycle expands cavern volume and reduces the spacing between caverns within the salt dome, which ultimately reduces their long-term viability,” it said.

To release oil from the SPR, water is pumped into the bottom of the caverns to displace the crude to the surface and pump it through wells into pipelines.

Seventy million barrels is the strict physical minimum needed at the top of the caverns to keep the extraction pipes safely submerged in oil rather than water, said Siddharth Misra, a petroleum engineering professor at Texas A&M University.

But “the practical operational floor for the crude inventory is between 250 million and 300 million barrels,” Misra said in an email to CNBC. At current inventory levels, “cavern integrity and overall operational capability are at an elevated risk,” he said.

When the inventory drops below 300 million barrels, the SPR loses its ability to pump oil at rapid speeds to address emergencies, Misra said. The system’s pipes and pumps could also get damaged as the oil layer thins at the top and sludge rises toward the extraction intake at the cavern ceiling, he said.

Fresh water is often pumped into the caverns during rapid drawdowns which dissolves the salt walls, Misra said. This “creates flatter, less stable roof and severely thins the critical salt pillars that separate adjacent caverns, greatly increasing the geological risk of a structural cave-in,” he said.

The SPR was originally designed for five full drawdowns. Instead, it has executed dozens of large and small releases over the past 40 years, Misra said.

“Because the system was not designed for this many cycles, the repeated injection of water and extraction of oil have caused severe cavern deformation, accelerated the rate of massive salt falls from the ceilings, and significantly weakened the overall structural integrity of the aging reserve,” he said.

Energy Department officials told the GAO that they are “holding the SPR infrastructure together with ‘Band-Aids,’ and that it is uncertain how long they will hold.” More than a quarter of the SPR inventory was “not available for drawdown due to a combination of construction outages and cavern outages” as of December 2025, the GAO found. ...

Experts fancy bond yields are simply normalizing higher, but yields across the board have risen in response to the oil war since March

 

Middle East tanker transits August 6-12, 2026 per UKMTO JMIC Update 084: Strait of Hormuz 1.9/day, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait 10.6/day

Saudis ramp up oil exports using Sumed pipeline to the Mediterranean, Sidi Kerir Egypt now exporting 2.3 mbpd in August, more than double the July level

Most of this oil is now going to Europe and the U.S. instead of Asia because of the extra time and shipping cost for going around Africa.

The UAE is now in the catbird seat for shipping oil to Asia, at least until Iran decides to attack Fujairah.

 

Saudi Arabia ramps up oil exports through Mediterranean pipeline to avoid attacks in Red Sea  

 ... Oil exports from Egypt’s Mediterranean port of Sidi Kerir have more than doubled to about 2.3 million barrels per day in August compared to around 1 million bpd last month, according to data provided by the trade intelligence firm Kpler. The majority of those exports are Saudi crude, said Matt Smith, director of commodity research at Kpler. ...

Saudi exports from Yanbu through the Bab el-Mandeb Strait were down nearly 90% to 1.3 million barrels during the week of Aug. 3, compared with 11 million barrels for the week of July 20 when the Houthis declared the embargo, according to Kpler data. ...

 

 

Middle East tanker transits August 4-10, 2026

 SoH: 1.9/day (70.0/day 2022)

BAM: 10.1/day (30.0/day 2022)

 

S

Middle East tanker transits August 2-8, 2026

 Per UKMTO JMIC Update 082:

SoH: 2.1/day

BAM: 8.6/day

 

The Trump administration is going to become irrelevant in 2 years, if it hasn't already

Fixed it for ya. 

20% of the world's oil production will never not be relevant. 

Bessent: The Strait of Hormuz Is Going To Become Irrelevant In 2 Years

Middle East outbound oil flows through both Straits are back down in the range of 6 million barrels per day if Bab-el-Mandeb is now indeed a return to the pre-war level

 It appears that there is nothing extra coming out of the Red Sea anymore, diverted by Saudi Arabia west to Yanbu.

UAE moved 0.95 mbpd through Hormuz in July 2026, but 2.28 mbpd out of Fujairah which doesn't go through Hormuz, which would be in addition to the now ~6 million through Hormuz, yielding 8.28 mbpd approximately, as we speak.

That's 62% off the pre-war level of ~22 mbpd out of the Middle East.

Trump not vanquishing the Houthis in 2025 is America's chickens comin' home to roost.

 

Middle East tanker transits in JMIC Update 081 for July 30-August 5, 2026: Strait of Hormuz 2.1/day, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait 7.9/day

 Agust. It's hot out there.

Middle East tanker transits July 28-August 3, 2026: Strait of Hormuz 2.3/day, Bab-el-Mandeb Strait 10.0/day

 BAM dropped off to just 6.75/day after July 30 from 14.3/day before.

 

Global crude oil production is down 12.1% from 4Q2025 in 2Q2026, and the United States cannot close the gap created in OPEC+