Kpler Sees Hormuz Shipping Severely Constrained Through Year End as TTF Rebounds From Monday's Plunge
ICE Endex TTF fell 8.58% on Monday (2026-07-27) on US-Iran de-escalation hopes, but Kpler's physical shipping assessment from Friday (2026-07-24) points to continued disruption into 2027.
The ICE Endex TTF August 2026 contract fell as much as 8.58% to €58.12 per megawatt-hour at the Amsterdam open on Monday (2026-07-27), after the United States paused airstrikes on Iran over the weekend and Tehran signaled a halt to retaliatory operations across the Middle East. By Tuesday (2026-07-28), the contract had settled near €57.79 per megawatt-hour.6
Three days before that selloff, on Friday (2026-07-24), cargo-tracking firm Kpler published an assessment describing Hormuz shipping as "severely constrained" and projecting that condition to persist through the end of 2026. Kpler's physical read sits in direct conflict with what the futures market priced on Monday (2026-07-27).5
The strait had previously carried roughly 20% of global oil and gas flows before conflict between a US-Israeli alliance and Iran effectively blocked the waterway at the outset of hostilities. Analysts who briefed OPEC+ at Vienna headquarters in a meeting reported by Rigzone on June 2 (2026-06-02) warned the group that supply disruption would persist to year end even if the strait reopened promptly, citing inventory drawdowns and tanker scheduling lags that make rapid normalization structurally unlikely.1
A ceasefire took hold on June 17. Since then, Saudi Arabia shipped approximately 34 million barrels of crude through the waterway, according to Kpler cargo-tracking data, even though only about 27 commercial vessels per day on average were transiting the strait as of early July — a fraction of pre-conflict throughput.3
That vessel count makes Kpler's Friday (2026-07-24) warning difficult to dismiss on diplomatic grounds alone. Bloomberg, citing Vortexa data, reported in mid-June that 40 supertankers carrying approximately 80 million barrels were waiting to pass through the strait. Kpler separately estimated that up to 153 million barrels of non-Iranian crude could be transported between June and August under a scenario with no further disruptions, with an additional 72 million barrels of Iranian crude possible only if the US lifted its naval blockade.2
European gas storage adds pressure. Facilities stood at roughly 47% capacity as of July 13 (2026-07-13), against 56% at the equivalent point in 2025, according to data cited by Yahoo Finance. Any extended delay in Hormuz throughput normalization puts Europe at the start of winter heating demand with a thinner inventory cushion than it had last year.4
That storage shortfall had already pushed prices higher in the weeks before Monday's (2026-07-27) selloff. The ICE Endex TTF front-month contract gained 3.5% to €50.37 per megawatt-hour on Monday (2026-07-13) as renewed Middle East tensions surfaced; the ICE NBP front-month equivalent rose 4% the same session.4
The scale of Monday's (2026-07-27) reversal — more than twice those gains in a single morning — shows how much of the recent TTF price level rested on geopolitical assumptions rather than physical supply conditions. Commerzbank cut its year-end TTF forecast to €45 per megawatt-hour from €50, with analyst Norman Liebke describing the ceasefire as a turning point while cautioning that the pace of normalization remained uncertain.2
The IEA's latest monthly report, cited by Invezz, showed global oil supply this year averaging 3.8 million barrels per day below 2025 levels, with inventories declining at a comparable rate since the conflict began. That shortfall cannot be cleared by diplomatic progress alone while a queue of supertankers still waits to move.2
With ICE Endex TTF trading near €57.79 on Tuesday (2026-07-28), the current price sits well above Commerzbank's €45 year-end forecast, implying a faster physical normalization than Kpler's July 24 (2026-07-24) assessment supports. The 40 supertankers reportedly waiting to transit as of mid-June — carrying roughly 80 million barrels according to Bloomberg and Vortexa — remain the most concrete measure of how long the clearing process will actually take.2,5