Iranian Light Crude Just Flipped From a $3.50 Discount to a $3.50 Premium in One Week

Iranian Light Crude Just Flipped From a $3.50 Discount to a $3.50 Premium in One Week

China’s teapots have weeks, not months, before this bites their run rates. Kpler data shows Iranian crude outside the Gulf has fallen from roughly 105 million barrels to 80 million since the mid-July blockade, and only a handful of unsold cargoes remain in Singapore floating storage. Iranian Light has swung from a $3.50 discount to Brent to a premium in seven days. Absent a pivot to Urals or fuel oil, Shandong’s independent refiners face a hard throughput cut once inventories run dry in October — a supply story with almost no coverage outside trade circles.

#China #TeapotRefiners #IranianOil #CrudeSupply #RefiningMargins

US Diesel Needs Just 6% More to Break Its All-Time Price Record — Gasoline Needs 23%

Everyone’s watching gasoline for the next pump-price headline, but diesel is the one actually near breaking a record. AAA has national diesel at $5.4677/gallon against a 2022 all-time high of $5.8159 — a 6.37% gap versus gasoline’s 23.4% gap to its own record. Distillate stocks fell 3.5 million barrels last week to 107.2 million, about 12% below the five-year average, while European buyers keep pulling US diesel exports to plug the hole left by Russian refinery strikes. This is a freight-cost and grocery-inflation story before it’s a headline story.

#DieselMarket #DistillateInventories #RefiningMargins #FuelPrices #TruckingCosts

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve Just Hit Its Lowest Level Since 1983 — With No Refill Plan in Sight

The US just spent its emergency insurance policy and hasn’t started repaying it. SPR stocks fell to 293.4 million barrels in the week ending August 14 — the lowest level since December 1982 and just 41.1% of authorized capacity — after Washington’s 172-million-barrel release to offset the Hormuz shutdown. DOE says roughly 70 million barrels is the safe operating floor, but Rapidan Energy pegs true unavailable inventory near 103 million. If Hormuz flows worsen or a hurricane hits the Gulf Coast this fall, there’s now far less reserve capacity standing between a supply shock and the pump.

#StrategicPetroleumReserve #SPR #OilSupply #EnergyPolicy #CrudeOil