Oil exports from the Persian Gulf have rebounded to roughly two-thirds of pre-war levels, which could keep prices below $90 even if the Iran war drags on, according to Goldman Sachs analysts.
Total exports of crude and oil products from the region have jumped to 15 million to 16 million barrels a day as tanker traffic through the vital Strait of Hormuz has started to pick back up, analysts including Daan Struyven and Yulia Zhestkova Grigsby wrote in a note.
That’s about 7 million to 8 million barrels below pre-war levels, but a huge improvement from the 5 million to 6 million barrels a day that were being transmitted through the waterway in March, the note said.
The flow is likely enough to keep oil in the high $70s to low $80s for the rest of the year – but there’s very little room for error, said Joe Adamski, managing director of ProcureAbility, a supply chain consultancy.
“The market is still running a deficit, in that strategic shocks are still being drawn down. Most of the world’s spare production capacity sits in the region and is still at risk,” Adamski he told The Post.
“There is no room to absorb another shock,” he added. “Any serious incident in the Gulf and this conversation shifts again.”
Brent crude oil dipped slightly to $88.22 a barrel Friday while West Texas Intermediate fell to $83.27 a barrel. National average gasoline prices, however, remained stubbornly above $4 a gallon, according to AAA.
Oil exports through the Strait of Hormuz alone likely account for 8 million to 10 million barrels, close to US officials’ estimates, according to the Goldman note.
It can be difficult to track exact shipments through the strait, however, since tankers often switch off their satellite transponders – a safety procedure known as “going dark.”
“The rise in dark crossings by specialized shippers, and in ship-to-ship transfers shows that producers and shippers are adapting to the Mideast conflict,” Goldman said in the note.
Higher dark flows could “moderate the upside to crude oil prices even if Mideast disruptions last longer,” the note added.
Those exports are helping keep oil below the $125 level it hit in April — and far from the $200 level mentioned in doomsday warnings earlier this year — even as Washington and Tehran have failed to reach a permanent peace agreement.
But in the meantime, oil reserves are shrinking, with the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve falling below the 300 million-barrel mark – its lowest level in more than four decades.
Jeff Krimmel, founder of Krimmel Strategy Group, said current flows are enough to stave off more market chaos – but only if they last.
“We can’t plateau here. Inventories are still draining. If we have a stall or rollback in flows through the Strait, our depleting inventory cushion likely cannot offer sufficient protection to stave off chaos in the months ahead,” he told The Post.
The US Government Accountability Office has also warned that the emergency energy stockpile’s operational ability is at risk due to aging infrastructure that hasn’t been replaced.
While oil exports have improved, Goldman’s note also warned that flows of liquefied natural gas and refined fuels are struggling.
“We continue to see greater price upside to European natural gas prices and deferred oil product prices in persistent disruption scenarios than for crude,” the analysts wrote.