Oil Prices Rise Despite Middle East Export Recovery

What I Cover Irina Slav has been writing about global energy markets since 2007, covering the oil and gas industry, energy security, commodities, and the…

Reports about recovering oil flows in the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea have dominated headlines over the past couple of weeks. Yet oil prices have only moved higher, suggesting barrel numbers alone are not enough to convince the world everything’s back to normal. It isn’t.

According to the latest Kpler numbers, October oil exports out of the Middle East in total are in fact higher than they were before the U.S. and Israel launched their first strikes on Iran at the end of February. Flows out of the Strait of Hormuz alone have averaged 11.7 million barrels daily this month, Kpler estimated, up from 9.8 million barrels daily in September, and close to the pre-war average of 14.5 million barrels daily in February, Reuters’ Ron Bousso reported.

Meanwhile, Kpler itself reported a sharp drop in tanker traffic via Hormuz this month as a result of the strikes. “Crude crossing the strait fell 27% from a wartime high the week before, to at least 10.1 million barrels a day,” two Kpler analysts reported in early October, as the firm counted only seven commodity carriers traversing the strait on October 6th. This was the lowest figure since late July, the analysts said.

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