Now that we are 6 months into this war, we know the following:
Oil is flowing through the Strait of Hormuz via the Oman lane. Kpler’s implied flow tracks it at ~6 million b/d, and the range varies between 4-8 million b/d.
Global crude exports (for August) are currently down ~3.8 million b/d.
Chinese crude imports are down ~4.56 million b/d.
Looking purely at crude flows, we are at a surplus of 0.76 million b/d y-o-y.
Following the escalation in July, oil-on-water has dropped back to its normal volume.
In this article, I will explain how much buffer we have left and what happens next in the oil market.
Buffer
There are two ways to look at the global crude oil math buffer. One is with China and one is without China.