Hormuz Tanker Counts Stay Depressed While ICE Brent Trades $13 Above EIA's Forecast
Physical flows through both Gulf exit routes remain disrupted even as futures prices have run well ahead of the agency's own supply model.
ICE Brent crude front-month was trading at $98.33 a barrel as of Tuesday (2026-09-08), holding near levels that would have seemed extreme before the conflict began, yet still roughly $4 below the $102 peak reached before the first diplomatic pause in late July. The gap between current prices and the EIA's August forecast of $85 per barrel — a spread of more than $13 — captures how far futures markets have moved beyond official supply modelling.7
Tanker crossings through the Strait of Hormuz dwindled further in the week of 2026-08-10, with only five crossings recorded on Wednesday (2026-08-12) and nine on Thursday (2026-08-13), against a monthly average of 12 crossings, according to Kpler data cited by OilPrice.com. Before the conflict, some 20% of the world's oil moved through the strait daily. That share had not recovered even as futures priced in diplomatic progress. The EIA, in its August Short-Term Energy Outlook, raised its Q3 Brent forecast to $85 per barrel, citing continued severe constraints on Hormuz transits — yet ICE Brent front-month has traded well above that figure.8,75
Traders spent much of late July oscillating between geopolitical alarm and ceasefire optimism, tracking headlines rather than tanker counts. When the United States and Iran halted strikes over the weekend of 2026-07-26 and 2026-07-27 to create space for talks, ICE Brent front-month sank more than 8% to below $88 a barrel, while US crude dropped more than 7% to around $82. That was a sharp reversal from the week of 2026-07-20, when Brent had gained more than 9% and risen as high as $102. The selloff was rapid. It was also premature.5
The physical evidence did not support such a swift repricing. The bearish signal that dominated trader attention in early August was a US commercial inventory build of more than 17.4 million barrels in the week of 2026-08-03 — a figure that drove sentiment even as Hormuz crossing counts remained below their monthly average across the same period, according to OilPrice.com. A large build in US domestic storage is a real signal. It is not, by itself, evidence that disruption along the Gulf's export corridors has eased.8
Hormuz is only part of the supply arithmetic. Saudi Arabia had begun rerouting crude away from the strait, with the Red Sea corridor allowing Saudi Arabia and the UAE to export around 6.8 million barrels of crude per day — roughly half the typical Hormuz volumes. On Monday (2026-07-20), Yemen's Houthis declared a naval blockade on Saudi Arabia and struck two Saudi oil tankers, threatening up to 4 million barrels per day of that redirected flow. ICE Brent crude futures rose more than 6% to reach $100 a barrel on Thursday (2026-07-23) for the first time since late May, according to RTE.2,43
Around 2.5 million barrels of Saudi crude moved through Bab el-Mandeb before the Houthi attacks, according to Jorge Leon, senior vice president and head of geopolitical analysis at Rystad Energy. Any sustained disruption to that corridor, stacked on suppressed Hormuz throughput, leaves Riyadh with few logistical alternatives.4
BMI, a unit of Fitch Solutions, warned in a report sent to Rigzone on Wednesday (2026-07-15) that markets were more vulnerable to disruption than at the war's outset in February, with fuel inventories seasonally low. The analysts noted that anchoring market expectations to a short-lived, low-spillover engagement would be harder the second time around.1
In a subsequent report sent to Rigzone on Monday (2026-08-03), BMI analysts said they continue to believe a broader diplomatic understanding between the US and Iran remains achievable during the quarter, but flagged the future governance of the strait itself as the key unresolved issue. Ongoing Iran-Oman discussions on a post-conflict framework were underway, the analysts said, suggesting no near-term resolution. A diplomatic deal, if it arrives, would still require time to return tanker schedules and insurance arrangements to anything resembling normal.6
The clearest falsification of the bearish case would be a sustained recovery in weekly Hormuz crossing counts back toward or above the monthly average of 12, accompanied by hull-war underwriters reopening coverage at pre-conflict rates. Until either appears, the spread between the EIA's $85 forecast and ICE Brent front-month trading near $98.33 reflects how much physical uncertainty the market is still absorbing — not how close resolution actually is.7,8