Saudi Arabia stopped shipping oil through the Strait of Hormuz for three months. Now it started again. Kpler tracked the tankers. This is what Kpler does. They count boats.
The pause happened to coincide with tense U.S.-Iran relations. The restart happened to coincide with some kind of U.S.-Iran deal. Retail traders are currently drawing lines on charts to predict when the next tanker leaves port. The lines are diagonal. Very scientific.
Three months is how long it takes for geopolitical risk to rotate from terrifying to boring. Saudi Arabia spent that time presumably doing anything other than shipping oil through a narrow waterway Iran could theoretically close with a moderately competent military operation. They have now determined the coast is clear. The coast being the thing they ship oil past.
The Strait of Hormuz is 21 miles wide at its narrowest point. Twenty percent of global oil passes through it. Every few years someone remembers this fact and panic-buys energy stocks. Then the tankers keep moving and the stocks go back down. The cycle repeats because humans are incapable of learning.
Somewhere right now a day trader is watching a maritime traffic app like it's a football game. He has convinced himself that tanker routes are a leading indicator. He has three monitors. Two of them show the same website. He will lose money this quarter and blame algo traders.
Saudi Arabia will continue shipping oil until it becomes strategically inconvenient again. Then it will stop. Then it will start. The chart will not tell you which comes next because the chart does not have security clearance.
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