Japan's Crude Oil reserve was built in 1980.
Took 45 years to fill. Took 8 weeks to drain. Source: Rand Group
The US is exporting its SPR releases.
Source: Lukas Ekwueme
Global oil inventories have fallen to 7.6 billion barrels since the Iran war began
Source: Stocks World
U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) stocks fall to 2-year low
Source: zerohedge
Is there a trade here? Crude and the dollar have never been this positively correlated.
Source: Bloomberg, RBC
US–China Sanctions Escalation Over Iranian Oil
Jack Prandelli argues that 90% of Iran’s oil exports go to China, prompting a US sanctions escalation aimed at Beijing. The US has built a multi-step pressure strategy including sanctions on shadow fleet vessels, teapot refineries like Hengli Petrochemical, and networks of front companies across Asia. It has also issued warnings to Chinese banks about potential secondary sanctions if Iranian oil payments continue flowing through their systems. Full secondary sanctions on major Chinese banks remain a possible next step, which could significantly escalate US–China financial tensions. Outcome depends on Beijing.
US continues to drain SPR to export oil to Asia
SPR down 5.22MM last week (-22MM last month) US oil exports 4.75MM last week Source: www.zerohedge.com
The US economy is picking up, corporate earnings are picking up, and investor sentiment is picking up. The headwind? Oil prices are picking up, too.
But so far, US sticks continue to shrug off higher oil prices. On Monday, Deferred Brent (Dec 2026) - see below black line (inverted) - hit a new Iran war high. The S&P 500 (green line) has been moving up for 5 weeks in a row and was only down -0.4%. Source: zerohedge
