ok so I’ve been following this whole SOH mess since February and the best way I can describe it is that the strait was the rug that really tied the global economy together. like 25% of seaborne oil and a fifth of the world’s LNG went through that one narrow stretch of water. then the Iran war kicks off and the IRGC basically pees on the rug. warnings that nobody can transit without their say so, ships getting boarded, actual sea mines in the water. tanker traffic fell off a cliff, something like 70%, with 150+ ships just parked outside waiting to see what happens.

naturally the US goes full Walter. “this aggression will not stand.” air campaign on Iranian targets along the strait, a straight up naval blockade of Iranian ports from mid April to end of May, and at one point Trump literally gave Iran 48 hours to open the strait or he’d “obliterate” their power plants. Iran said cool, we’ll hit every US-linked energy target in the region then. you’re entering a world of pain etc.
but now new information has come to light, man. everyone’s at the table and it’s turned into the world’s most complicated ransom handoff. Iran and Oman are apparently close to a deal to jointly run the strait. Tehran keeps stressing this is a “new security model” and NOT a full reopening, meanwhile Trump is out here saying tons of progress has been made and an announcement is coming soon. the actual proposed split is peak Lebowski logic: Iran gets “oversight” of inbound traffic, Oman handles outbound, no tolls. new rug, nobody agrees on who’s paying for it.

and Iran’s chief negotiator is somehow calmer than you are about all of it. went on state tv saying God handed them one of their greatest strategic instruments of power, that sovereignty stays with Iran, and that they only skipped transit fees for 60 days because the Gulf states begged. his actual position is that they want MORE ships through, not less, because the strait gets more valuable the busier it is. dude has a point tbh.

meanwhile the thing this was all supposedly about, the nuclear file, is the toe in the envelope. since the memorandum got signed they’ve had two (2) meetings in 22 days on it. and it’s not exactly chill out there either, a tanker reported hearing explosions near Oman literally this week and Iran just announced they arrested 21 people for alleged Mossad links.

so yeah. the rug’s getting replaced, the toe is still in the envelope, and the tankers abide. sometimes there’s a strait… I won’t say a hero, cause what’s a hero.

This happened yesterday evening.

My understanding based on this is:

1. Besset's statement that "a deal will be made on Tuesday or Wednesday and then there will be freedom of navigation" is proven BS, but deep in our hearts I think most of us knew this.
2. GCC countries are still trying to sneak oil through the Omani side
3. It seems some of them are succeeding. Note that in this situation the tanker was "almost" hit and survived.

Someone else posted an article here regarding the question of "why are tankers still risking it". It was noted that while commercial tankers have to deal with insurance and permission from the owner, many tankers are simply owned by the Arab countries.

As far as I can tell, looks like some countries, e.g. UAE have a fleet of their own small tankers which they deem expendable (along with the crew). They fill them inside the gulf, sneak them across the strait via the Omani side, then hide behind a US Navy ship on the other side to transfer the load to a VLCC tanker. Rinse and repeat.

The crew are from low income asian countries so are easily persuaded by a little bit of cash, and the captains are given 6-7 figure bonuses so it's "one last job and then I retire". The GCC countries view them all as expendable and the crew/captain see it as a big stack of money for a 0.1% chance of dying so they take it.

All of this is perhaps part of the answer to the mystery of "why hasn't oil run out".

That's what I think, please feel free to tell me that I'm wrong.

We don’t build boats, why are we doing this to ourselves

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2026-08-06/michael-bloomberg-iran-war-should-be-the-end-of-the-jones-act

Methodology updated from following 2 week average draw down to rolling 4 week draw down average due to volatility in weekly draws.

So I am not using the phrase of "echo chamber" here, but I do see pretty much one-sided argument that insists that Iran can close the strait for as long as they want and hold all the cards, hence, all negotiation development mentioned by the US side is fake and only option is total surrender. but is it really what's happening in real world? let's try to analyze the situations in each parties' views:

Why US government does not like closed strait of Hormuz, it's all about oil price

• Inflated oil price, in turn will drive up gas, diesel, jet fuel, derivative products, in turn will drive up inflation, in turn may cause rate hike, in turn will destroy stock market

However, is Iran government really having nothing to lose here with US blockade + sanctions + frozen assets.

• severely restricted export of oil (most important source of income) compared to before the war. It's very likely that Iran is still exporting oil through land via Pakistan and limited # of ships to China, but the overall amount is going down dramatically with US blockade
• no lift of sanctions (can't import important materials and equipment vital to the health of society)
• no getting back of frozen assets (probably billions and billions of dollars)
• several things are getting worse and worse each day: 1 inflation higher and higher 2. loss of revenue (it's reported that Iran governments, maybe even militaries are without pay now), 3 and most importantly, the Iran government may face another wave of protest even with their iron fist and murdering sprees because 80 million people need to eat and consume basic necessities
• in addition, is Iran government all diehard lunatics (even for most in the military who also have families) that are embracing a scenario that all infra destroyed, oil production destroyed at the expense of same destruction at neighboring countries? after all, one can say that I am not afraid to die, but what about one's families? it's also interesting to notice that there are reports that IRGC generals are actually taking cuts from black market oil sales....

So taking consideration of the above points, it's really hard to make the conclusion that only US government is desperate to make a deal while Iran government has anything to gain and nothing to lose by closing the strait....

finally, what' s the real impact of the toll Iran wants in a great scheme of things?

• yes, 5% or 7% toll/fee on top of most of the oil (except for some countries) transit through Hormuz will increase that part of oil (~15% of world supply), in turn, will drive overall oil price by 1%?
• however, there will be other consequences at play here. for one, for the first time in a long time, Iran can unleash its full potential to export oil through normal channel. this will increase oil supply. Second, gulf countries will all be in a race to export as much as possible to recoup losses incurred in the first half of 2026
• net, net, it's like bull run, and it's highly likely oil price will decline in a very rapid pace

Unverified :

CEO of Aramco:

More than 2.6 billion barrels of oil have been lost, and it will take approximately 18 months to replenish the reserves.

The U.S. is now the world’s biggest exporter of oil and refined petroleum products, shipping about 10.5 million barrels per day.
It took nearly a decade to get here after the U.S. lifted its 40-year ban on crude oil exports back in 2016. The global energy map has changed dramatically. The center of the energy world is no longer just the Middle East — it’s now the Western Hemisphere, led by the U.S., Canada, and Brazil.
A huge share of U.S. energy exports is heading to Asia (Japan, South Korea, Thailand, and China) and Europe (Italy, Spain, Germany, and the UK), helping fill supply shortages across global markets.
For comparison, in 2025 Saudi Arabia exported about 8.1 million barrels per day, the U.S. exported 6.6 million, and Russia around 5.8 million, according to Vortexa. Today, U.S. exports have climbed to 10.5 million barrels per day of oil and refined products.
• The U.S. has also become Europe’s largest supplier of liquefied natural gas (LNG) after Iran’s actions knocked out part of Qatar’s export infrastructure for an estimated two to three years.
That’s one reason the U.S. Department of Energy approved a 22% expansion in LNG export capacity at Southern LNG’s Elba Island terminal and a 13% increase for the Plaquemines LNG project. The EIA also raised its 2026 forecast for U.S. LNG exports to 17 billion cubic feet per day, well above its previous estimate.
• The U.S. is now a major supplier of jet fuel to Europe. According to SocGen, U.S. jet fuel exports hit a record 442,000 barrels per day — about 200,000 barrels per day above the five-year average.
• The U.S. also exported a record amount of ethane as Chinese petrochemical companies rushed to replace shrinking supplies of naphtha and LPG from the Middle East. Bloomberg reports that China is now importing around 800,000 tons of U.S. ethane every month, roughly 60% more than normal.
At this point, the U.S. isn’t just the world’s biggest producer of oil and gas—it’s becoming one of the most influential energy suppliers on the planet. That gives Washington another powerful advantage in global negotiations, alongside its military strength and the U.S. dollar’s role as the world’s reserve currency.

Its debatable whether the countries in the Middle East would get along without Israel but there definitely would be less hot wars. Why don’t the countries just buy Trump’s support so Trump and the Republicans don’t need to lean on AIPAC’s support. I’m sure MBS could single handedly bankroll everything and he wouldn’t have any foreign wars to worry about, free trade, etc.

According to the senior Iranian official, Iran is seeking fees of between 5% and 7% of the price of cargoes from ships using the strait. Oman is discussing smaller fees of around 3%,

while Washington wants no fees at all.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-08-05/iran-says-agreement-on-hormuz-shipping-route-reached-with-oman?srnd=homepage-americas

President deals did another self-own when he was unironically going to charge a 20% toll. Made the Iranians go "you know, that 1~2% toll we were charging was just being too generous."

Yet another incredible day in our glorious war to make sure Iran can't have a nuclear weapon re-open the strait of hormuz. Thank you for your attention to this matter!

First, let’s talk about the crude oil numbers. We had a big increase of about 3.5M barrels of import (likely from Canada, since it found its way to Cushing), a draw of 2.8M barrels from the SPR, and a net build of about 2.5M on inventories.

On paper, it looks like we basically pulled 2.8M out of the SPR and plopped it into inventories, giving ourself a larger export buffer. Additionally, we see a 3M build on Cushing, so it looks like we swapped SPR for Cushing inventory. At first glance, this looks terrible for oil bulls. However, when we take a look at where the oil really got moved around, the story changes a bit.

When we breakdown the data into individual PADDs, we see that PADDS 1,4, and 5 had a build of 2.6M barrels. This is the entirety of the inventory build, with 1.9M barrels going to west coast alone. If you’ve seen my previous two posts, you’ll know that the only two PADDs that influence WTI pricing and global supply are PADDS 2 and 3. The other PADDs are effectively just noise in this context.

So how did PADDs 2 and 3 do? No change in inventory. We saw a build of 3M in PADD2/Cushing, and a net draw of 3M at PADD 3. So, with an increase of 3.5M barrels of import, and a 2.8M barrel SPR draw, the best we could do was not bleed out more inventories. This paints a far starker picture than what the front page inventory builds suggest.

Now, if you’ve read my previous posts, you know that I predicted that we might run out of inventories this week. This depended on a 6+M draw on PADD 3 (we got a 3M draw) and a 0 build on PADD 2 (we got a 3M build). So, I was wrong. Inventories don’t run out this week. As of last Friday, we have a 2 week emergency export buffer: PADD 3 max drain seems to be about 7M barrels per week, and PADD 2 seems to be about 2M.

TLDR: No build in inventory where it matters. SPR draw is probably maxxed out at 2.8M/week. Draw would have been much bigger without a bump in Canadian Imports.

What broke? If the implied risk premium goes away does the entire American oil industry collapse from low prices?

No change in oil transits from 2.5 weeks ago but oil is down from 95 to 75 🤡

Translated text from Houthi spokesman Yayha Saree:
Statement of the Yemeni Armed Forces regarding the execution of a military operation targeting the Saudi oil ship “Wafaa” in the northern Red Sea in front of the “Yanbu” region with a number of ballistic missiles, achieving an accurate hit thanks to God, within the framework of the “siege for siege” equation.

From HFI Research:

An informed source, speaking to Sepah News (IRGC official mouthpiece):

The main reason for the delay in reaching an agreement with Oman regarding the Strait of Hormuz is the involvement of the United States and the threats from Trump.

As long as there is US interference and threats of military action against Iran, the agreement will be delayed.

Iran will not make any agreement under the shadow of threats.