Strait of Hormuz transit falls to eight vessels as IEA warns of 4.3 mb/d supply loss
Eight vessels crossed the Strait of Hormuz on Tuesday. The pre-war baseline was 130 to 140. That is not a partial disruption — that is near-total closure, and the gap between the physical reality and Trump's repeated claims of "total control" is now wide enough that the IEA has put a number on it: 4.3 million barrels per day expected supply loss, with stockpiles described as rapidly depleting.
Peace talks have stalled. The decoy plane incident in Turkey — cabinet members held on a separate aircraft while the president exited quietly to avoid an Iranian threat — tells you something about the operational threat assessment that official statements do not. Governments do not run decoy aircraft for manageable situations.
The market question is how long stockpile draw can substitute for physical flow before price structure breaks. The IEA's language is "rapidly." That is not a word that agency uses carelessly.
