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U.S.-Iran Deal Doesn't Mean A Swift Return Of Oil And Gas Flows

Zero Rss
2 months ago
U.S.-Iran Deal Doesn't Mean A Swift Return Of Oil And Gas Flows

Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,

  • A U.S.-Iran agreement could reopen the Strait of Hormuz, but shipping and production will not immediately return to normal.
  • More than 10 million bpd of Middle Eastern oil production has been shut in, and some fields may take months to restart fully.
  • Iraq faces a slower recovery than Saudi Arabia or the UAE because its southern exports depend heavily on access through Basrah.

The U.S.-Iran deal and the potentially imminent reopening of the Strait of Hormuz do not mean that oil and gas trade will quickly return to its previous levels. The announcement of the deal is just the first step, and it could take months for oil and gas shipments in the region to return to pre-war levels.

Middle Eastern producers have been forced to shut in more than 10 million barrels per day of oil production since the Strait of Hormuz was closed three and a half months ago. Producers will need months to fully ramp up wells to previous output levels, while the status of the Strait of Hormuz - even if it re-opens on Friday as expected - is still unclear.

"We don't know what open means or what the speed of evacuation of trapped material is going to be," Daniel Sternoff, senior fellow at the Center on Global Energy Policy at Columbia University, told AP late on Sunday.

Some producers like Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates would be quicker to restore output compared to Iraq, for example, which had to curtail the highest proportion of its production due to its inability to move the crude out of its southern fields through Basrah.

"Places like Iraq could be much more challenged because they've had a much bigger shut-in, their fields are more difficult," Alan Gelder, senior vice president of refining, chemicals, and oil markets at Wood Mackenzie, said.

"It may well take about a year before they get back," the expert told AP.

At the end of May, WoodMac's analysts said that assuming operators choose a measured and controlled ramp-up, the fields affected by the Strait of Hormuz closure could get back to 70% of prior production within three months and to 90% within six months. The last 1 million bpd or so will take considerably longer, according to the energy consultancy.

According to Ole Hansen, head of commodity strategy at Saxo Bank, "The speed at which supply chains normalise and export flows recover will also play a key role in determining how much of the geopolitical risk premium remains embedded in the market."

Already, some shipping companies have made it clear that they will wait until the deal is formalized on Friday before attempting to cross the Strait. Even for shipowners who are willing to make the crossing, organizing insurance and other practical issues could further delay the recovery.

The agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz could well mark the end of the war between Iran and the U.S., but it marks only the beginning of what will likely be a long road to recovery for the oil and gas industry.

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/15/2026 - 12:25
Tyler Durden

First LNG Tanker Crosses Hormuz After Deal Announcement As Most Ship Managers Remain Cautious

Zero Rss
2 months ago
First LNG Tanker Crosses Hormuz After Deal Announcement As Most Ship Managers Remain Cautious

An LNG carrier successfully passed through the Strait of Hormuz early on Monday, the first tanker carrying energy products to clear the chokepoint since the U.S. and Iran announced a deal to reopen the Strait later this week, according to OilPrice.com

While tanker owners and operators remain cautious about rushing to send vessels to the area or having the ones inside the Persian Gulf move quickly toward Hormuz, one LNG tanker passed through the Strait today, carrying LNG to India.

The LNG tanker Disha cleared Hormuz and is currently in the Gulf of Oman, ship-tracking data on MarineTraffic showed. The tanker had loaded LNG from Qatar’s Ras Laffan in early March, just when the Gulf state halted LNG production and exports amid the closed Strait of Hormuz and Iranian missile hits on its LNG infrastructure at Ras Laffan.

The first LNG carrier to transit the Strait of Hormuz following the announcement of the US-Iran MOU.

Qatari LNG cargo is heading to India

Map form @Kpler https://t.co/b3t6IWgbGx pic.twitter.com/W44b8SgYSS

— Anas Alhajji (@anasalhajji) June 15, 2026

The tanker is now en route to India, a source close to the matter told Reuters on Monday. 

India has had several LNG tankers from Qatar move through the Strait of Hormuz in the past months, after securing and negotiating corridors with Iran. 

Now the tentative U.S.-Iran deal and the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz could ease the traffic congestion and allow more tankers to head to the Middle East to pick up supplies. If the deal holds.

That said, tanker owners and operators await clearance to proceed and are not rushing to test the passage until they have assurances it is safe to do so.

“While we are aware of signs of progress towards a ceasefire, our policy remains unchanged; we will only resume navigation once safety has been fully confirmed,” a spokesperson for Japan’s Mitsui O.S.K. Lines told Reuters on Monday. 

According to MarineTraffic, vessel activity through the Strait of Hormuz continues, but traffic patterns remain uneven and visibility remains limited: 29 verified vessel crossings were recorded between 10 and 14 June, covering crude, refined products, LPG, chemicals, methanol, and general cargo movements. Activity was concentrated on 11 and 12 June, while directional flows remained imbalanced: 23 crossings moved west-to-east, compared with six in the opposite direction.

Additionally, route transparency also remains a key issue, with 18 crossings, or around 62%, classified as Dark or Unknown Route. Two sanctioned vessels were also identified during the period.

Strait of Hormuz traffic remains uneven

Vessel activity through the Strait of Hormuz continues, but traffic patterns remain uneven and visibility remains limited. According to #MarineTraffic data, 29 verified vessel crossings were recorded between 10 and 14 June, covering crude,… pic.twitter.com/SXkofITV5Y

— MarineTraffic (@MarineTraffic) June 15, 2026

As Bloomberg notes, two major oil product shippers and a large vessel management firm remain cautious about sailing in the Middle East, even with the US and Iran reaching an interim peace agreement to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

Tanker owner Hafnia said the situation remains fluid, and that “to prepare transits, any alleged reopening must be supported by verified security conditions on the ground”

“Hafnia will only resume transits once there is sufficient confidence in the security environment”

Ship owner Torm meanwhile said it will “carefully assess the situation and resume transits when we consider it safe and responsible to do so”
Jesper Kristensen, CEO of Synergy Marine Group, which manages more than 700 vessels, said that “while the announcement is encouraging, sustained stability and predictability over the coming days will matter.”

“It remains too early to draw firm conclusions,” he added.

Finally, as Lloyds List notes, shipowners rushing to reposition vessels and markets are rallying, yet insurers for now are holding firm on high war‑risk premiums, insisting on ‘solid evidence’ of lasting safety before lowering rates.

Industry bodies warn that mine clearance and a return to the formal Traffic Separation Scheme are essential, as Iran’s blockade has permanently altered regional risk and demonstrated its leverage over the strait.

While a pause in hostilities will free stranded mariners and boost tanker and bulk markets, the sector sees this as a fragile reprieve rather than a return to normality, with elevated risk now embedded in long‑term decision‑making.

Commenting on the situation, a senior US official said that traffic in the Strait of Hormuz will see a significant increase in one to two weeks from now, adding that "the flow of traffic will take some time to improve due to mines in the strait."

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/15/2026 - 12:19
Tyler Durden

White House Suspects NY Times Reporters Have Situation Room Recordings

Zero Rss
2 months ago
White House Suspects NY Times Reporters Have Situation Room Recordings

Senior Trump administration officials are convinced that two New York Times reporters have somehow obtained recordings of White House Situation Room meetings, which would represent an astounding breach of security, Axios reported on Sunday. 

"We're afraid some of our most sensitive conversations were being recorded," a White House official told Axios. "And we have no idea which ones." 

The White House Situation Room hosts some of the most consequential conversations on Earth 

The two journalists are Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan, and the officials are convinced that verbatim Situation Room conversations reproduced in their soon-to-be-released book must have come from recordings of deliberations inside what should be the most secure conference room in the world. The book -- Regime Change: Inside the Imperial Presidency of Donald Trump -- will be released on June 23rd, but excerpts already posted by the Times included detailed quotes from conversations that took place in the Situation Room. 

Some of those direct quotes first appeared in an April 7 Times article on the deliberations that took place in the run-up to Trump's decision to team up with Israel in launching a major war on Iran. That report, also by Haberman and Swan, described how administration officials reacted to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's aggressive campaign to convince Trump to betray his campaign pledge to avoid regime-change wars.

Netanyahu was said to have assured Trump that Iran's ballistic missile arsenal could be destroyed in just a few weeks, that Iran wouldn't be able to stop traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, that Iran wasn't likely to attack other countries in the region, that a huge protest movement could be sparked into seizing power, and that Kurdish fighters from Iraq might be enticed into attacking. 

Maggie Haberman and Jonathan Swan's book is touted as providing "unprecedented reporting from deep within the administration's most closely guarded rooms"

Of course, like his infamous 2002 assurance that an invasion of Iraq would have "enormous positive reverberations on the region," all of Netanyahu's assurances about a war on Iran proved spectacularly wrong. At the time, according to Haberman and Swan's reporting, some Trump administration officials were rightly skeptical. The day after Netanyahu's presentation, CIA Director John Ratcliffe was said to have called Netanyahu's pitch "farcical." Secretary of State Marco Rubio was quoted as bluntly restating Ratcliffe's characterization: "In other words, it's bullshit." 

When Trump asked Joint Chiefs Chairman General Dan Caine to weigh in, he's quoted as saying, "Sir, this is, in my experience, standard operating procedure for the Israelis. They oversell, and their plans are not always well-developed. They know they need us, and that’s why they’re hard-selling." 

Axios notes that the use of quotations doesn't necessarily indicate an audio recording was obtained: "Bob Woodward pioneered contemporary historical political journalism by including dialogue in his books that was reconstructed from the memories of people in the rooms where things happened." However, the fact that senior White House officials are concerned about what they've seen so far suggests that Haberman and Swan's quotes may not be mere reconstructions. What's more, the promotional descriptions of the book tout "unprecedented reporting from deep within the administration’s most closely guarded rooms." 

Tyler Durden Mon, 06/15/2026 - 12:05
Tyler Durden

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