Three tankers clear Hormuz, knocking US crude below $100

Three tankers clear Hormuz, knocking US crude below $100 The first supertankers to leave Hormuz in two months carried 6 million barrels out on May 20, triggering an 11% crude slide on reopening hopes. Three commercial supertankers carrying a combined 6 million barrels of Middle East crude exited Hormuz on Wednesday (2026-05-20), the first vessels to clear the chokepoint after more than two months stranded inside the Persian Gulf.^6,4 A fourth was entering as the three left, shipping data on LSEG and Kpler showed.⁴ The departures gave oil traders their first hard evidence that a waterway normally carrying about 20 million barrels a day might be reopening.² NYMEX WTI crude front-month fell more than 5% below $100 a barrel that day, settling at $99.37, an 11.47% loss.^2,1 ICE Brent crude front-month dropped to $106.09, down 9.12%, widening the spread between the two contracts to $6.72.¹ The slide unwound part of the premium built since the US and Israel opened their campaign against Iran in late February, a conflict that pushed crude to $120 a barrel in March.^2,7 President Trump said Washington was in the final stages of talks with Iran, comments traders read as a step toward a ceasefire and a fuller reopening.² The price ran ahead of the cargo. The three tankers switched off their tracking systems to avoid possible Iranian attacks as they crossed, according to Kpler and LSEG.⁵ Six million barrels is barely a percentage point of the roughly 100 million barrels the world burns each day, and resumed supply has not actually arrived.^1,6 Inventories tell the tighter story. American Petroleum Institute data showed US crude stocks fell 9.1 million barrels in the seven days to May 15, more than double the 3.4 million-barrel draw analysts expected and deeper than the prior week's 2.188 million.³ Stockpiles have now fallen for four straight weeks.² The International Energy Agency said the world is drawing down oil inventories at a record pace, with 164 million barrels released by governments and industry as of May 8.⁷ It put total lost supply near 1 billion barrels, far above a planned 400 million-barrel release, and warned that shrinking buffers could herald sharper spikes ahead.⁷ Even after the drop, the US benchmark sat about 10% higher over the past month and 60% above a year earlier.² Trading Economics models, run before the tankers cleared, pointed to crude near $107.63 by the end of the quarter.² Analysts had expected a reopening by late May or early June, a timeline the convoy supports but does not confirm.⁷ Bearish bets had crowded into crude before the move, yet the contrarian read rested on the physical side: storage, supply and infrastructure all argued that one convoy does not clear the backlog.³ Whether more tankers follow is what counts now. A steady exit from the Gulf would confirm the reopening trade; a re-closure or a strike on the next transits would send prices back toward March's $120 high.^2,7