Two supertankers and an LNG carrier have passed through the Strait of Hormuz this week and are currently en route to their destinations in China and India, Reuters reported today, citing data from Kpler and LSEG.
One of the tankers is loaded with 2 million barrels of Saudi crude and traveling to China, the data showed, while the other carries 1.8 million barrels of Emirati oil, set to deliver it to Indian Hindustan Petroleum. The LNG carrier Umm Al Ashtan was earlier this week reported to have cleared the Strait of Hormuz with its transponder switched off to avoid detection. The two oil tankers were also moving in dark mode along the chokepoint, Reuters said in its report.
Despite the uptick in tanker traffic via the strait that handles a fifth of global energy flows, since early March, hundreds of vessels, including tankers carrying energy commodities, have been stranded in the Persian Gulf west of the Strait of Hormuz amid the de facto closure of the chokepoint, but the past couple of weeks have seen some moving out.
The disruption in oil and gas exports from the Persian Gulf has triggered a surge in U.S. energy exports, mainly to Europe, but earlier this month, a rare cargo of crude oil was sent to the Philippines. The move highlights energy importers’ efforts to cope with the unprecedented crisis.
Prior to the war, Asia as a whole got as much as 80% of its crude oil from the Middle East, the report noted, with the Philippines specifically importing its crude from Saudi Arabia, Iraq, and the United Arab Emirates. The Southeast Asian nation had not imported oil from the United States since 2020, data from Kpler showed. Since the start of the U.S. and Israel war against Iran, global crude oil production has lost between 14 and 15 million barrels daily.
By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com
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