Fill 'er Up: Record Armada Of Tankers Bound For US Gulf To Load Oil
An unusually large number of crude oil tankers on the open seas has the American Gulf coast as a destination as the ships are redirected to load cargoes bound for markets around the world already experiencing shortages.
As Alton Wallace writes at The Center Square, second-term Republican President Donald Trump said Saturday on social media that “massive numbers” of “completely empty” oil tankers are en route to the United States to purchase American energy.
“Foreign buyers are voting with their ships: American energy means stability, strength, and freedom from Middle East blackmail,” the president posted on Monday.
Shipping data posted by maritime intelligence company Windward shows 171 crude tankers are bound for the U.S. Gulf to load crude oil cargoes, which compares with about 110 in a typical month.
The surging vessel traffic comes as nations throughout Europe and Asia grapple to secure energy supplies and regional prices skyrocket. Germany is providing emergency fuel relief to its citizens while officials in the Philippines recently declared a national energy emergency as the world looks increasingly to the U.S. to replenish war-starved oil and gas markets.
"Hundreds of supertankers, the kind that carry two million barrels each, are currently racing toward the US Gulf Coast from every direction, Atlantic, Indian Ocean, around Africa, the scenic route, the 'we were heading to Saudi Arabia but never mind' route," Jesús Enrique Rosas noted this weekend.
Oil markets research firm Kpler estimates U.S. crude oil exports in April will reach 5.2 million barrels per day, up about one-third from 3.9 million barrels a day in March, the Financial Times reported last week.
North Carolina-based Kpler analyst Matt Smith described the great volume of incoming ships as an “armada of tankers heading this way.”
Trump on Saturday remarked that the U.S. oil output is more than the combined total of Saudi Arabia and Russia, the next two largest producers, and the president promised a “quick turnaround” for the arriving fleet.
Shipping data shows approximately 28 very large crude carriers, which can hold about 2 million barrels of oil, have been contracted to load U.S. crude in May compared to a monthly average of just five in a typical month, according to Kpler.
Trump shared a post on Saturday by oil market researcher Rory Johnston that read “very cool seeing the wave of empty tankers heading to the U.S. to pick up some desperately needed crude for Hormuz-starved markets,” to which the president responded, “Great!!!”
"The more Iran leans on Hormuz, the faster global energy flows reroute around it. Over time, that erodes Tehran’s leverage and cuts into its long-term power," Osint613 posted Sunday.
America and Israel on Feb. 28 launched military strikes against Iran. The Iranians, with control of the Strait of Hormuz, has stymied an otherwise one-sided confrontation. An 11th-hour ceasefire to last two weeks was announced Tuesday.
As the shipping logjam continues, Windward’s daily intelligence report on Monday shows 732 vessels carrying oil, gas, refined fuels, and other fossil fuels-based products await transit through the Strait of Hormuz.
To avoid the volatile region, many of these vessels are now rounding the Cape of Good Hope at the southern tip of Africa – a detour that bypasses the Suez Canal but adds up to 15 days of travel time to reach American docks.
In March, Port of Houston officials announced completion of the Project 11 channel widening project, which eliminated longstanding nighttime vessel movement restrictions in place for more than a century, allowing large vessels to safely transit the channel without waiting for daylight.
Finally, as Stephen Green explains at PJMedia.com, there may be a strategy here...
Supporters and critics alike - the honest critics, that is, who deserve protection under the Endangered Species Act - understand that Trump acts as a chaos agent. He knows the end result he wants, even if sometimes only broadly defined as "Make America Great Again." The established rules and methods don't allow for that, so Trump is happy to blow things up (sometimes literally), and see what can be rebuilt from the pieces.
The thing about that Persian Gulf stranglehold is that, like the Sword of Damocles, it's most effective before it's used. Now that Tehran has tried (and only partly and temporarily succeeded) in closing the Strait of Hormuz, "About the only escalation option the IRGC has is to renew its missile and drone attacks on neighboring Gulf states," as my Hot Air colleague Ed Morrissey put it on Monday. But "Trump has an escalation for that as well: Bridge and Power Plant Day. Let's see how long it takes for Iran to provoke it."
Looking at the bigger picture, Rosas also wrote: "Iran played its biggest card and the main result is that the United States became the world's emergency gas station and China's cheap energy subsidy evaporated. The spice — er, oil — must flow. But Trump rewrote the rulebook about where it flows from."
But, as Andrew Moran writes at Liberty Nation, there is a tricky balancing act here...
On the one hand, the US economy is far more insulated from global oil shocks than it was during the Iraq War, as it is a net petroleum exporter.
The March, April, and May trade data, to be released later this summer and early fall, should yield fascinating economic insights into the Iranian conflict.
On the other hand, consumers still bear the brunt of higher gas prices.
Private-sector data suggest that consumers continued to shop in March, even after excluding gasoline station transactions. Whether they can keep their wallets open this spring, even with handsome windfalls from the One Big Beautiful Bill’s tax refunds, will be a wild card for GDP numbers.
In the end, will this be a winning message for November’s midterm elections? It will be challenging to convince voters of a grand 4D chess scheme involving America’s oil and military prowess.