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Every single day High Frequency Trading algorithms are fed the usual newlines about "peace tomorrow" and accordingly they sell oil certificates. This is the current scenario. As the narrative is dominated by western media it becomes just a self fulfilling prophecy: news announce every other minute that "talks are positive", "Iran wants peace" , "Hormuz is open" and then algos sell accordingly. Release of strategic reserves especially in the US reinforces the trend also on the pyisical market (apparently "strategic reserves" for the orange genius are strategically aimed at having Average Joe pay gas at discount on the 4th of July). Add to this the fact that Chinese are emptyjng their own reserves because they don't wanna purchase oil at current Brent Dated spot price. And here we are left waiting for the lowest oil price since COVID times with Hormuz nearly closed and USA and Iran stockpiling missiles for the next exchange. Crazy world.

Hormuz traffic is still almost negligible. But the US is still releasing strategic reserves to flood the market and support the narrative that "there is plenty of oil because Hormuz is now open". In the meantime bots sell certificates on a daily basis on the (fake) news of the day. The game is clear: Iran needs to use the "Hormuz closed" narrative to increase their leverage at the negotiatinf table (provided such table even exists), and accordingly WS sells oil certificates as the US government keeps draining their strategic reserves. Average Joe is happy because he doesn't even know where Iran is, but he believes the storytelling and pays less gasoline at the pump. This is exactly what Trump needs up to November. Keep draining reserves, keep telling that Hormuz is open, keep selling certificates. After November it will be war again. But in the meantime they can bring the OP as low as they deem required.

PS this is the same strategy that was used by Biden in the previous administration: drain reserves and claim the market is "oversupplied". Trump criticised him for "destroying US security". Now we get a "Biden on steroids". Welcome the new boss, worse than the old boss.

Https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/hormuz-tanker-traffic-plunges-after-fresh-us-iran-strikes

Are we supposed to believe Bloomberg then? There's hundreds of vessels still stuck in the Gulf as per Marinetraffic maps. And they haven't passed through the Strait yesterday, or the day before...

Iran does not need to "close Hormuz" completely. It just needs to pass the message that transit is not safe, and accordingly discourage carriers (and especially insurers) from entering the Strait in the future. It's just the same philosophy that Europe put in place with Russian "ghost" carriers, just "the other way around".

Iran knows very well that this will prevent oil supply from the Gulf to return to pre-crisis levels and accordingly will have more political leverage over the US. Trump administration obviously knows this, and reacts by manipulating OP in Wall Street, which is *THEIR* personal Casinò, where THEY only are supposed to stack the deck as and whenever needed.

Dated Brent spot prices are telling another story though: yesterday Brent OP was still 85$. From this perspective, Iran strategy has definitely a good chance to succeed, whatever the efforts of manipulators at WS.

Clearly TLW cannot survive an environment where the OP is back to the 60s, which is what paper-manipulators at Wall Street are pursuing so hard (4th of July is very near and they need to further manipulate the OP to the low accoringly).

The point is, dated Brent price yesterday was still 86$. There's quite a significant disconnection between traders' (algos, bots)' bets and physical market spot prices. Ships are (slowly) leaving the Gulf, in some way. But how many of them are going to return? Considering after November Trump will have free hands to make Netanyahu happy with a second round of the war against Iran, do we really think the whole world will stay twiddling their thumbs, rather than rushing to increase as much as possible their depleted reserves?

Everything points to an environment where OP is going to spike up. Bots and algos are showing a totally opposite view in their magic mirrors. We will see what happens in the future, but in the current futures Brent price scenario it should not come as a surprise to anyone that TLW is battered like a tuna fish. Unfortunately.

Yesterday mess in Hormuz was worth a miserable 2$ spike in the OP with flocks of shorts coming to rescue during the night. They are in control, until their strategic reserves are drained to zero they will pretend oil is flowing normally and short every spike in the futures. In the meantime spot Brent is more than 10$ higher than futures. Physical market apparently still feels the pain.

Physical evidence is one thing. Manipulation is another thing. And manipulation is in full swing, with the usual "short the f**k" headlines provided at market opening for bots and algos to do the dirty job for the US Presidency. Their narrative scheme is clear: "you see? nothing has happened. Oil is flowing again, end of the story". This narrative, although very naive, is perfect for Average Joe who is not even able to identify Iran or Hormuz on a map. And Average Joe is going to vote in a few months for Midterm elections: it's all about that.

They've used strategic reserves everywhere in the world to mitigate the effects of lack of supply from the Gulf, and now they are kicking the can pretending that nothing has happened, as strategic reserves are drained to record-low levels in the last 45 years or so. They control the narrative, they control the paper-market, they set algos for their bots to do the dirty job. They can go on like this for some time more, further draining reserves and pretending that the market is working fine as usual. But for how long? And how much that "long" is going to affect the SP of oil companies like TLW? This is the real issue now on the table.

Forbes article is a pile of senseless rubbish

In a world where storage tanks are close to minimum operational levels, oil demand is growing up again and constraints to free trading of oil and gas are still in place, we're gonna find ourselves soon in a scenario where oil price are at record-low level. At this pace, 60$ per barrel are just behind the corner. This is the consequence of bots and algos trading paper certificates following headlines issued by complacent newspapers (all newspapers): if yesterday the mantra was "agreement soon!" now you get a headline every single hour counting the number of vessels exiting the Strait, and this "counting-sheep" exercise is achieving the result of bringing down the oil price to levels that are simply ridiculous.

It is increasingly interesting, then, to look at physical oil price: the spread between futures and Dated Brent is increasing every day and is almost approaching 10 USD. Add to this the very obvious scenario where Trump is going to replenish reserves , get lower gas price at the pump and increase popularity entering into the Midterms with nearly decent chances of not being steamrolled by democrats. And you can expect to have Epstein Fury Operation Round #2 just as a Christmas gift. This will probably be recalled as as very good opportunity for buying oil and gas shares on the stock market on sale. Time will tell.

Clearly a "MoU" is just a piece of paper illustrating a commitment by parties to do..something. In itself cannot even be considered a settlement but just a promise to do it in the future. It just serves the purpose of lowering the OP while attempting at having a few more ships transiting through the strait. The point is Iran had already and always stated that they were not going to develop any nuclear weapons and the fatwa issued by Khamenei was the strongest possible "political" statement Iran could make in this regard. So actually this MoU is not stating anything new apart for committing the parties to re-open the strait and have a few billion dollars injected in the bleeding balance sheet of Iran. Easy to guess that Israel will start sabotaging this "agreement" from day one, and in the meantime the US will keep their fleet in the Gulf for bullying purposes, hitting here and there in Iran for "defense" reasons while Iran in response hits some oil carrier here and there. And in the meantime Iran leadership will have to expect the next decapitation strike, as it always happened when an "agreement" was reached with the US.

TLW is obviously not striving in a scenario where OP is in the 80s. This is too low a price for actually repaying the debt and producing some FCF. But this is another story.

Short positions are at they highest level since 2021. Trouble is OP is not 200$ but less than 90$. Current prices would be unreasonably low even in case of a Hormuz wide open. Manipulation is in full swing as we're entering driving season and Wall Street is fully engaged with protecting Epstein Fury Operation by artificially cooling gasoline price for Average Joe. I'm not sure where this is leading us though.

And Guess what? Hormuz now is open. No ships seem to be passing through but.. it's just because of transponders. And yet oil reserves worldwide are plummeting , China is no longer importing oil and is increasingly relying on their strategic reserves, major oil companies CEOs warn on a daily basis that inventory levels are unsustainably low. And yet... Who cares. Short positions on Oil by hedge funds are at record high levels and oil prices reflect an Eldorado where everything is fine. Orange man speaks and Wall Street follows: they win, you lose. Tomorrow is another (TACO) day.

At the same very moment where physical impact of lack of supply through Hormuz is materializing, here we are with an OP ridiculously low. Things are becoming really interesting.

Lenin, this is hard to guess. Too many factors are affecting the OP, which seems to have entered into a "damage-control" mode where major spikes are prevented by means of narrative manipulation and more...physical issues. One of these is the release of reserves, which is massive (up to 8.5 M bpd) and is draining both strategic and commercial reserves: this is creating a false sense of safety, further fed by the manipulative media narrative that "everything is fine". If on the one hand this is a legitimate non-military weapon waged by the USA and Israel to put pressure on Iran by nurturing the idea that this war can last forever without economic consequences (inflating the stock market is part of this scenario), on the other hand this manipulation is leading commercials reserves to depletion in the (unfunded) hope that tomorrow refineries will be able to buy oil at 60$ because "Trump said it".

The more we get into summer, the thinner strategic and commercial reserves will get. In this standoff, where Iran is waiting for the OP to peak up to 200$ as a consequence of 2 or 3 more months of reserves drainage, while USA controls the narrative of western media and use the stock markets as just an additional weapon in the conflict, we are all left waiting for a potential disaster to materialize. This disaster would be the perfect lifeline to TLW, but it will take time to see things unravelling as the fog of war dissipates and a slow-motion train-wreck finally materializes in front of everyone, with commercial buyers rushing to buy the last barrels as reserves are close to operative minimum levels.

There's no point in complaining for a SP which is stubbornly refusing to reflect such a scenario: as long as the narrative (and the flood of reserves onto the market) keep going, everything will be under "damage-control mode". Tomorrow, is another day.

Interestingly, spread between Dated Brent Platts' OP and futures has been widening in the last two weeks. It actually stabilized between 108 and 112 USD in spite of the furious downside pressure on futures. Apparently the fracture is widening between supply-demand reality, and the goldilocks narrative spread by the media to feed manipulation on the stock markets. As yesterday media were joyfully celebrating the 2-or-maybe-3 tankers passing through Hormuz with CTA selling oil certificates by the handful, physical buyers were offering 15 USD more for a tanker setting sail.

trump has been bllshting as usual, and bot and algorithms followed suit as usual to reinforce the narrative. the funny thing is the op was so unjustifiably low ahead of such bls****ing, that current price levels do not reflect not only a full blockage of hormuz, but even just a threat of that happening. in this clown world it is extremely difficult to make any sound forecast or "fundamental analysis".

feeling is the us is preparing another "shock and awe" treatment to iranian leadership after fooling them into an "imminent deal". the iranians know this better, and just pretend to be "cooperating" in finalizing such agreement for internal political consensus, and in the meantime are piling-up weapons for a new wave of rockets and drones against gulf monarchies. cannot of course rule out anything, but this imvho is the base case. we will know soon, in any case.

like every morning us subservient algos step-in by mid-morning to sell oil certificates before ws opening. the problem is, orange man's jawboning is showing signs of wear: one month ago, the same bl*****ing brought the op down to 85$. two weeks ago down to 95$. this week down to 105$. physical market cannot be fooled forever via rubbish headlines on truth or improbable middle east newspapers. and iran knows. clock is ticking.

This week's TACO Tuesday came on Wednesday apparently. And here we go again with the clown show.

Anybody figuring out when next cargos (KOS and TLW) will be leaving from Ghana?