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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?

XX I had noticed this new trend recently as Dated Brent price collapsed to match almost perfectly the future price, which is unusual generally speaking, not only applied to this "unchartered" scenario.

As the article very well highlights, it's a combination of factors: first of all the paper manipulation is affecting also the physical market "if I can get oil for 90$ in a couple of months, why purchasing it now for 130$? Let's wait". In addition to this, the massive release of strategic reserves is providing *physical* relief. In summary, there's oil available, and there's no rush to buy as futures look comfortably low.

But everything is going to be fine as long as strategic reserves do compensate for disappearance of Gulf oil. If the block is not lifted, though, expectations about the future will be increasingly different and accordingly buyers will wake up and fight to grab the oil provided with strategic reserves as futures will increasingly discount a physical lack of supply. In other terms, it will be the other way around: futures will drive spot prices up, rather than the opposite.

The silver lining here is that the current OP is more reflective of a "post-war" environment than a "critical" one. The market is discounting an increasing challenge to procure oil barrels in an enviroment where there is no actual physical constraint, and this is a post-war scenario which is very, very far from materializing. In other words, we can assume OP will be in the 100 range for quite some time after the war, and after a full-blown crisis peak is already behind the industry. The point is, that crisis peak has not yet materialized, and all bets are off in this regard. Enjoy the drama :)

US bots and algos stepping in as always for damage control purposes after the spike during Asian session. We're getting used to it. In the meantime the release of a flood of strategic reserves is supporting the spot price as some 500,000,000 have already been released so far. At the current trend (about 5M bopd released) by the end of June IEA countries will be in very big trouble as some 50% of strategic reserves at worldwide level are in China (and they're not made available to western countries, it goes without saying). As usual, big trouble brewing, but damage control holding up oil price by means of CTA paper sellers in Wall Street, and emptying of strategic reserves worldwide.

Provided this war is ending any time soon, after then the depleted reserves will have to be refilled. I wouldn't be surprised if the OP gets higher after the end of the war, than it is now (once damage-control and manipulation are over and physicals constraints become clearer to anyone).

It's been just the same BLS for many weeks now. Few weeks ago the two parties were sitting at the same table to negotiate a deal. Few weeks later were left with a "memorandum" to get the same people to the same table and in the meantime the Gulf has remained closed. And guess what? OP is lower than weeks ago! Clown world.

OP and stocks bubbles are a weapon allowing the US administration to drag the war as long as possible while minimizing the effect on the wallet of American taxpayer. It works and it will keep working as long as the physical market allow the manipulators to keep selling their snake oil. Clock is ticking and sooner or later reality and facts will break through.

That trend is linked to futures manipulation at WS, with bots and algos doing the dirty job for commodity funds. Typically they enter into the game at 9.30 GMT and their action gets increasing momentum into WS opening by 14:00. In most cases they short oil certificates in line with the POTUS agenda relying on the blsh*it orange epstein distributes via social media between Mondays and Tuesdays (hence the infamous TACO Tuesday definition). This week was no exception.

Overall, though, physical oil price is much less responsive to the same bls*it as they're much more sensitive to demand-offer of *real* oil barrels on the physical market. Hence the spread between the (toilet)paper traded in WS for next July (read: futures) and the *real* price of barrels tends to reduce as future prices increase, and tends to widen as future prices are manipulated to the low.

Axios "news" is the same news has been provided for the last two months: "close to a deal", "14-points", "de-escalation", "final meeting planned", "only details left to be defined", "ceasefire"... And in the meantime, as they sell oil future certificates and pump the stocks to record levels (because, you know, we have never been better than today), physical market cries shortage with the latest cargos from Angola and Norway achieving 130-to-150 USD per barrel.

It's typically a risk management clause which is introduced in highly-distressed scenarios. In practice the M&A backstop clause is introduced in order to prevent the BoD from selling assets in the last few months before debt expiry as the assumption is that such assets would be liquidated at extra-low price, thus inflicting damage to the bondholders. In essence, it allows bond-holders to step in a few months before debt expiry and be in the driving seat when a potential default is approaching.

US bots and algos as usual by 10.30 AM came to the rescue based on the latest b**sh*t headlines made by the Orange Man. They're apparently celebrating the fact that "Project Freedom" operation was aborted 12 hours after starting, arguably due to a few "liberated" ships having been droned by Iran on their own way to Freedom. Crazy market and crazy times. Wall Street used just as an additional weapon to offer financial cover in a war no one knows where the heck is leading us to.

No way KOS is interested in taking over TLW. They're fully engaged in reducing the debt (-20% in 2026) and have top-quality assets like Tiberius to develop soon. Maybe Ghana is finally paying the outstanding payments? That would quite justify such a movement.

80% increase in 5 days... smells like something is happening behind the curtains. Especially considering KOS has been languishing in the meantime, in spite of excellent operational results in all of their assets.

Kosmos is losing 7% in pre-market. Don't think this spike up is so much relevant to KOS update as it doesn't actually add much to what was already shared by TLW beforehand.

It's impossible to "reconsider" hedging positions in light of the current OP scenario. Only thing can be reasonably done is taking the opportunity for introducing less catastrophic hedges in the future (for example put options which would be issued at a discount compared to 3 months ago). The point is TLW was likely forced to introduce these hedges within the overall agreement for refinancing, as it is normal practice in these cases. KOS has a very similar hedging profile (possibly even more self-damaging) and small-to-mid O&G companies overall do share the same approach.

Silver lining is, you have a 50-60% production which is not capped and is benefiting accordingly of the higher OP.

Latest update from TLW just provides the umpteenth confirmation that CME Brent Dated Platts swap chart is the perfect tool to track the OP whenever a cargo is ready to leave.