EuroOilWatch — EU Fuel Reserve & Price Intelligence
Energy, shipping and food-security risks are converging — 9 critical and 10 elevated situations tracked, from the Strait of Hormuz to Europe’s rivers. View the full board →
Today · EuroOilWatch AnalysisThe Danube Forces Romania’s Last Operating Nuclear Reactor Offline →Nuclearelectrica began a controlled disconnection of Cernavodă Unit 2 on Thursday morning after the Danube fell below the level the plant’s cooling-water intake requires — 182cm on 12 August against the 185cm needed. Unit 1 has been offline since late July. Romania’s only nuclear station, normally about a fifth of national generation, is now entirely out, replaced by a 330 MW lignite unit brought back from reserve, hydro within the limits of available water, and imports. Low water has gone from constraining freight to removing a country’s baseload.New · OilWatch Network InvestigationHormuz Is Not Reopening: What the UKMTO’s Full Report Actually Says →JMIC’s Update 080 states a total of 80 incidents. Its annex prints 86 vessel rows representing 85 unique report references, and the document does not explain the reconciliation. We classified every row: 52 are kinetic, and 40 of those fall inside the Hormuz theatre. SEVERE is not a measure of closure, 30 U.S.-facilitated transits cannot simply be divided by a 138-vessel baseline, and on a like-for-like basis PortWatch puts tanker transits at about 2% of their 2023 norm in the week to 2 August. Every number is real — the mistake begins when we ask it to measure something it does not measure.New · Cross-Site AnalysisThe War Is Spending Its Buffers. All of Them at Once. →Reuters reports the US has used ‘virtually all’ of its long-range ATACMS and PrSM missiles in five months of war, with ~65% of Patriot and ≥38% of THAAD interceptors expended. The arsenal is the latest entry in the ledger this war has been writing since February — safe detours, fuel stocks, river depth, and now the shield over Gulf oil itself. Every buffer is a stockpile, and they are all being spent at once.New · Infrastructure AnalysisFrance Is Spending €10 Billion to Escape Diesel. The Route May Not Be Ready When the Canal Opens. →The Canal Seine-Nord Europe could remove a million lorry journeys a year — a permanent demand-side reserve of diesel that no longer has to be burned. But the canal is due in 2032, its large-barge connection to the Seine may not arrive until 2035, and the bill has risen from €5.1bn to as much as €10.5bn with finance. The real gamble is synchronisation.New · Flagship AnalysisHormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, Suez: The Oil Market Is Running Out of Safe Detours →No single event has closed the oil map. Each escape route has inherited the load — then the threat — of the one before it: Hormuz to Yanbu to Bab el-Mandeb to Suez/SUMED, where Sidi Kerir loadings have surged and a drone just struck Damietta. The convexity problem: every workaround used up makes the next disruption cost more.New · Supply-Route AnalysisAs Hormuz Falters, Iraq’s Pipeline to the Mediterranean Matters Again →Turkey and Iraq have extended the Kirkuk–Ceyhan operating deal for a year, reserving capacity of up to 750,000 b/d against ~170–180,000 flowing — the first commitment of the crisis to expand use of a corridor that bypasses the war’s maritime bottlenecks. Its risks are political and commercial, not maritime — and in a crisis of correlated chokepoints, a route whose risks are different is the scarce asset.New · The Framework, IllustratedThe Danube Falls. Half of Hungary’s Electricity Goes With It. →Hungary came within hours of the first complete shutdown of the Paks nuclear plant in 44 years — nearly half its electricity — because the river that cools it is too low; a late rise in the Danube kept one turbine online at just over 10% of capacity. Not war, not sanctions: a shared input failing across nuclear, coal, hydro, barges and grain at once. Europe’s drought has crossed from making energy expensive to switching it off.New · Russia–Ukraine AnalysisRussia Has Oil. It Is Now Importing Petrol From Morocco. →~30,000t of AI-92, loaded at Tangier, discharged at Murmansk — reported supplier: Lukoil. Morocco has no operating refinery, which sharpens the signal: Russia’s fourth emergency supply route now runs through a third-country transshipment hub, for petrol of undisclosed origin, carried from Gibraltar to the Arctic.New · Flagship AnalysisEurope Has Crude. What It Is Running Short Of Is Diesel. →Brent is easing while European diesel cracks set an all-time record ($74.66/bbl), diesel inventories sit at their thinnest since 2022 and total ARA product stocks at a 2014 low. The scarcity is no longer the barrel — it is the machine that turns the barrel into fuel, just as Europe enters its winter stock-building season.New · Country Focus — FranceFrance Has One of Europe’s Stronger Oil Reserves — but Its Fuel System Is More Vulnerable Than It Looks →SAGESS holds ~16 million m³ across ~80 sites, deliberately weighted toward finished fuels. But France imports more than half its diesel, jet demand is at a record and Europe’s commercial jet buffer is under a month — a strong strategic reserve sitting on top of a tight everyday product system.New · Flagship AnalysisThe Chokepoints Are Becoming Tollbooths →In one month three actors — Washington, an Omani framework and the Houthis — proposed charging ships for passage through the same two waterways. The tell isn’t the fee, it’s the exemption: a toll needs a rule about who doesn’t pay, and that makes it a claim to jurisdiction rather than a raid.New · Russia–Ukraine AnalysisRussia Is Importing Fuel While Exporting Crude →One of the world’s largest crude producers has begun importing gasoline. The paradox is the clearest measure of Ukraine’s refinery campaign: producing crude and converting it into fuel are different capabilities — and attacks on the concentrated refining and logistics system have forced shortages, export bans and imports, tightening global diesel.New · Flagship AnalysisOil Is Pricing a Pause. Shipping Is Waiting for Proof. →Brent fell almost 6% on hope of a US–Iran pause — but Hormuz still ran fewer than ten ships a day and Red Sea traffic hit a multi-month low. The market is pricing manageability, not peace; the earliest real test is whether empty tankers start returning to the Gulf.New · Gas & PowerEurope’s Summer Gas Refill Is Being Repriced by the Iran War →One of the war’s most direct lines into European and British homes this summer isn’t crude — it’s gas. TTF is up more than half in a month to four-month highs, just as Europe must rebuild an unusually low winter buffer (~54% on 22 Jul). Not a shortage: a shared LNG market repricing the cost of winter security.New · Flagship AnalysisThe War Reaches the Route Built to Bypass Hormuz →Saudi Arabia spent decades building a way to move oil without Hormuz — the pipeline west to Yanbu on the Red Sea. This weekend Houthi strikes on Jizan and Yanbu brought the war to that route. Two corridors meant to be independent are now exposed to the same conflict — correlated-corridor risk, where the independence a backup depends on is the thing breaking down.New · The Framework, IllustratedEurope’s Reliability Debt →Brussels asked refiners to defer maintenance to get Europe through the Hormuz shock. Nobody has published what that borrowing cost — so we built a bounded estimate, assumptions exposed: a real but mid-sized exposure that falls due in the autumn turnaround season.New · The Framework, IllustratedThe Chokepoints Inside Europe →Europe is watching Hormuz — but the Rhine and Danube are losing carrying capacity at home. A river need not close to become a chokepoint; it only has to grow too shallow to carry what Europe expects of it. Landing energy at a port is not the same as delivering it inland.New · Accountability AuditThe Strategic Reserve Nobody Can Measure →European law makes grid operators rehearse restoring the network — and imposes secrecy on the plans they rehearse. Spain’s national blackout produced an 800-page post-mortem in which nobody asked whether the spare equipment was sufficient. We audited eight jurisdictions: not one publishes an adequacy standard, and not one publishes how long a destroyed transformer takes to replace.New · Flagship AnalysisFrom Hormuz to the Checkout — the Fertiliser Shock Hiding Inside the Energy Crisis →Sulphur trapped behind Hormuz, a Russian diesel ban and Chinese export controls are moving upstream into fertiliser — just as France's maize fails and Europe leans on imports for the very inputs under threat. The crisis migrates from the oil price to the checkout.New · CommentaryEurope Is About to Sanction Itself →Brussels wants to cripple Russia’s Arctic LNG fleet before Europe has secured the gas to replace it — disabling part of the delivery system before working out how to replace what it delivers. Sanctions theatre at the expense of European industry, consumers and food production.New · The Framework, IllustratedBypassing a Chokepoint 135 Barrels at a Time →It takes nearly 15,000 tanker trucks to equal one supertanker, and 111,000 journeys a day to replace Hormuz’s crude. Iraq’s convoys are keeping oil moving — and proving why the infrastructure of cheap energy cannot be improvised once a crisis has begun.New · The Financial FrameThe World Is a Pressure Cooker — and Energy Is the Flame Beneath It →Energy is the flame, sovereign debt the weakened vessel, hidden leverage the pressure — and collateral the likeliest point of fracture. With its companion piece on how an energy shock could detonate the yen carry trade: the financial mechanism most likely to transmit it.New · Flagship AnalysisHormuz Is Not Reopened — a Controlled Corridor as a Diesel Shock Emerges →The market is fighting two wars at once — renewed Hormuz risk and Russia's diesel export ban. European diesel margins have hit a record, and the squeeze is surfacing downstream first, in the fuels that move trucks, ships and food — a product-market stress that crude prices alone don't capture. Part II to The Second Shock.EuroOilWatch Analysis · NewEurope's Self-Inflicted Exposure — Record Russian LNG, Stalled Electrification, and a Gulf Oil Shock →In one week Europe bought record Russian LNG, a Gulf war reinserted an oil premium, and the IEA's own chief called the continent's failure to electrify a “major mistake.” The exposure now being stress-tested at Hormuz is, to a substantial degree, self-inflicted. Third in a connected series.New · The FrameworkWhy Cheap Energy Isn’t Always Cheap →The theory beneath the headlines — Ricardo’s comparative advantage and rent, the electricity merit order, Jevons and chokepoint rent. Why a cheap unit of energy is not a cheap energy system, and why the scarcity prices that should fund resilience are the ones policy keeps switching off.ResearchThe analytical backbone — the Compound Cascade framework & its companion Institutional Failure Mode Typology, plus the interactive instruments →Latest The Second Shock Is Not the First →EU fuel stocks were under strain as of May 2026, with jet fuel reserves critically low across most member states and several large economies falling well short of mandatory minimums.
Data period: 2026-05 · Updated 13 Aug 2026, 18:34
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EU Average Fuel Reserves (Days of Supply)
As of May 2026 · 25/27 countries reporting · Eurostat
Petrol
Min: 90d
Diesel
Min: 90d
Jet Fuel
Min: 90d
EU benchmark: 90 days of net imports or 61 days of consumption, whichever is higher (Directive 2009/119/EC)
Days of supply shown here are calculated from total EU consumption, not net imports. They indicate domestic buffer capacity and are not directly comparable to formal IEA compliance figures. See Methodology for details.
Weekly Fuel Security Briefing
Every Thursday: reserve status changes, price movements, and supply-risk signals across all 27 EU countries — in one concise email.
Read by logistics operators, procurement teams, and energy analysts.
EU Average Reserves — 18-Month Trend
Market Prices
Brent Crude
▼ -1.69 (-1.9%)
Brent (EUR)
EU Avg Petrol
EU Avg Diesel
Physical NWE Crude — Editorial Estimate
North Sea Dated (Argus) — the physical benchmark corresponding to Dated Brent
As of 28 Jul 2026 · Argus end-of-day assessment, via Australian Institute of Petroleum (29 Jul publication, series to 28 Jul) · approximate chart reading
Source re-checked 12 Aug — no newer print published
The physical premium has collapsed rather than persisted. Dated Brent reached an independently verified $105.70/bbl on 23 July (Reuters) as prompt supply tightened and the following-week Brent CFD surged to an extraordinary $11.10/bbl premium — refiners paying far above the screen for barrels actually deliverable and suitable to run. Argus assessments published by the Australian Institute of Petroleum then show North Sea Dated falling to roughly $93/bbl on 27 July and about $86/bbl on 28 July, broadly reconverging with Brent futures (~$86.8 on 29 July) as the geopolitical risk premium unwound. Treat the figure as indicative: AIP publishes the Argus series graphically and does not print the underlying decimals, so this is an approximate chart reading, not an exact assessment. The lesson of the past week is that physical can stay sticky for days and then move very fast, so this card is dated to the ASSESSMENT date and now marks itself stale after 48 hours rather than carrying the last print forward as though it were current. · Update 31 Jul: no fresh Argus assessment is available to us — the last dated reading remains ~$86 (28 July), with Brent futures since ranging roughly $84–$92 and near $87.6 on 31 July. The stale flag on this card is deliberate: it stays until a new dated assessment replaces this one. Note the sharper signal is now in products, not crude — European diesel cracks hit an all-time record $74.66/bbl on 31 July. · Update 6 Aug: still no fresh daily Argus assessment in public sources — the freshest physical datapoint is AIP's weekly report (published 3 Aug), averaging North Sea Dated at 81.2 A¢/litre for the week to 31 July, roughly US$91/bbl converted at current AUD/USD (a weekly average spanning the late-July slide, and our currency conversion rather than a published dollar assessment). The market has since moved well below the last dated print: Brent futures fell three straight sessions on Hormuz de-escalation — $83.51 (3 Aug), $79.36 (4 Aug, a three-week low), $79.45 (5 Aug), near $79.6 on 6 Aug (Rigzone/Bloomberg settlements; TradingEconomics) — as US–Iran talks resumed, Treasury Secretary Bessent said a Strait-reopening deal 'may come this week', and Iran and Oman drafted a shipping-route agreement via Muscat; OPEC+ separately approved its final 188,000 b/d September quota increase on 2 Aug. Hormuz flows remain ~7mn b/d, well below pre-war. The record European diesel cracks of 29–31 July (diesel above $90/bbl on 29 Jul, Argus; ICE gasoil–Brent above $75 on 31 Jul) have no public European print since, though Asian gasoil cracks hit a three-week low on 4 Aug as deal optimism grew — direction is easing. The stale flag stays until a new dated assessment replaces the 28 July figure; with futures near $79, expect the next physical print materially below the $86 shown. · Update 8 Aug: THIS READING IS STALE — it is a historical assessment, not a current market level. The last verified Argus print remains approximately $86/bbl on 28 July 2026 (via AIP, approximate chart reading), and no fresher dated Argus North Sea Dated assessment has been located in public sources in the eleven days since. Do not read the $86 above as where physical crude trades today. For current direction use futures: Brent settled $79.45 on 5 Aug and recovered to $83.55 on 7 Aug (+$1.06, +1.3%), the gain driven by renewed uncertainty over the Hormuz reopening negotiations rather than by any physical tightness (Reuters, via Investing.com; TradingEconomics shows the same $83.55 close). That is the latest settlement available — 8 Aug is a Saturday. One outlier is worth recording: Fortune's automated 7 Aug page quoted Brent at $86.04 at 05:20 ET, which no settlement source corroborates and which we are not carrying. The 6 Aug expectation that the next physical print would come in materially below $86 still holds directionally but has narrowed — futures are now roughly $2.5 under the last dated physical print rather than $6.5 under. The weekly AIP figure cited in the 6 Aug update (~US$91/bbl for the week to 31 July) remains OUR conversion from 81.2 A¢/litre at then-current AUD/USD, not a published dollar assessment, and must not be treated as a dated print. The stale flag stays until a new dated assessment replaces the 28 July figure.· Update 11 Aug: STILL STALE, AND NOW STALE IN THE OTHER DIRECTION. The $86 figure above remains the 28 July Argus print (approximate chart reading via AIP); no fresher dated Argus North Sea Dated assessment has been located in public sources, and AIP's terminal-gate page carries no crude benchmark. We are deliberately NOT manufacturing a reading. What has changed is the sign of the gap: for the past fortnight futures sat BELOW this stale physical print, and they now sit above it. ICE Brent settled $79.36 on 4 August, then rose five straight sessions — $79.45 (5 Aug), $82.49 (6 Aug), $83.55 (7 Aug), $87.72 (10 Aug, +4.99%) and above $89 on 11 August — so the screen is roughly $3 ABOVE the last dated physical print rather than below it. Do not read the $86 as today's physical level in either direction. The percentage-premium line on this card suppresses itself whenever the stale print sits below live futures, which is now the case. Note also that the sharper signal remains in products: European diesel refining margins rose nearly 10% on Monday 10 August after the Taneco and Jazan refinery attacks. The stale flag stays until a new dated assessment replaces the 28 July figure. · Benchmark note, 11 Aug: a FRESHER physical datapoint than our 28 July Argus reading does exist, on a different basis — EIA's Europe Brent Spot Price FOB (series RBRTE, which we already carry in brent-eia-daily.json) printed $88.90 for 3 August against an ICE Brent futures settle of $83.77 that day. That is a physical assessment roughly $5 above the screen, which suggests the physical premium had NOT fully collapsed by early August as this card's 29 July text implies. RBRTE is free, daily and lags about a week. It is NOT North Sea Dated and we do not swap one benchmark for the other silently — but if this card is re-based onto RBRTE it would stop being structurally stale. Flagged for an editorial decision; until then the headline figure above remains the 28 July North Sea Dated reading. · Narrative correction, 11 Aug: SUBSEQUENT DATA. EIA's Europe Brent Spot FOB series (RBRTE) has subsequently again shown a material premium to Brent futures — $88.90 on 3 August against an $83.77 ICE settle, roughly $5. That is a DIFFERENT physical benchmark from Argus North Sea Dated, assessed on a different methodology, and it does NOT retrospectively invalidate the 29 July observation recorded at the top of this note: on the Argus series, on those dates, the premium did reconverge with the screen. What it does mean is that 'the physical premium has collapsed rather than persisted' must not be carried forward as a description of the CURRENT market state. It is a dated observation about late July, not a standing condition. Any claim about where Dated Brent sits relative to futures today requires an actual Dated assessment, which we do not have since 28 July. What can be said from RBRTE alone is narrower and still useful: physical spot Brent has been trading above futures. That sentence is supportable; 'Dated Brent is $5 over futures' is not, unless the Dated print has been checked. · Update 12 Aug: RE-CHECKED, NO NEWER PRINT — AND THE STALENESS SEMANTICS FIXED. Fifteen days on, no fresher Argus North Sea Dated assessment has been located in public sources, so the headline $86 remains the 28 July reading and stays pinned as a historical assessment. Direction is unchanged from 11 August: ICE Brent traded near $89 on 11–12 August, roughly $3 above the stale print, so the headline figure must not be read as today’s physical level. CORRECTION TO THE 11 AUGUST BENCHMARK NOTE: that note argued that re-basing this card onto EIA’s RBRTE series would stop it being ‘structurally stale’. Withdraw that argument. We checked RBRTE directly against EIA today and it still ends on 3 August at $88.90, so on a two-day freshness requirement it fails the same test — re-basing would change the provenance without curing the staleness. RBRTE may still be worth adopting one day, but the case for it rests on accessibility, reproducibility and licensing cost, NOT on recency, and Argus North Sea Dated remains the better physical benchmark for what this card is actually trying to represent. The real defect was in the monitoring model, not the card: the sweep was reading the ASSESSMENT date as though it were a maintenance date, which turns a deliberately maintained surface into a permanent red failure — and a check that always fails gets muted. This file now carries assessmentAsOf (when the analytical assessment was established), dataAsOf (the latest underlying observation on this card’s own basis), latestCheckedAt (when we last went looking for a fresher print) and stalenessPolicy, so the checker can judge maintenance cadence while the reader still sees a correctly stale assessment. One cross-check from the shipping side, because it is the same claim-versus-observation problem this card exists to handle: US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said Middle East exports are back above pre-war levels at about 9 million b/d through Hormuz, while Kpler counted 84 vessel transits in the whole of last week against more than 100 a day pre-war, and JPMorgan puts actual outflow nearer 4 million b/d (CNN Business). Twelve ship-to-ship transfers off Oman and the UAE on 10 August (EU Sentinel-2, via Bloomberg) show that part of that gap is invisible rather than absent. The products signal remains the sharper one for Europe: diesel margins rose nearly 10% in a single session on 10 August after the Taneco and Jazan refinery attacks. The stale flag stays until a new dated assessment replaces the 28 July figure.
European Gas — TTF vs Henry Hub + AGSI Storage
Updated dailyTTF (front-month)
€60.59/MWh
▼ 0.71%
Henry Hub
$2.729/MMBtu
▼ 2.67%
Europe pays vs US
7.50×
+$17.75/MMBtu
Open the full Gas Tracker — TTF vs Henry Hub history, EU storage by country, 90% refill target
→European Jet Fuel — Country Days-of-Cover + ARA Hub
NewEU average
81.3days
strategic + commercial
Most-stressed
16.5days
Poland · 21 of 27 critical
ARA hub commercial
600kt
-7.6% WoW · 6-yr low
Open the full Jet Fuel Tracker — 27-country breakdown, ARA hub trend, 18-month history, UK context
→Global Oil — Where We Stand
Updated 11 Aug 2026Update — Tue 11 Aug 2026
The peace trade broke — and the throughput went down, not up. Barclays estimates combined crude and refined-product net exports through Hormuz averaged just 3.0 mb/d in the week ending 7 August, against 4.4 mb/d the week before. That is the number we would put above the diplomacy: while the corridor design advanced, the barrels actually moving fell by roughly a third. Iran now says the talks are deadlocked, listing sanctions relief and the unfreezing of Iranian assets among its conditions for a full reopening, and President Trump told Axios the US is ‘only semi-negotiating’. Read the crude move as a round trip rather than a breakout: ICE Brent settled $79.36 on 4 August, then rose for five straight sessions to $87.72 on Monday (+4.99%) and about $89.4 on Tuesday — but on that same futures series Brent settled $90.12 on 31 July and peaked at $100.69 on 23 July, so today is roughly where the month ended and still about 11% below the July high. The market has given back a few days of reopening optimism and no more. The persistent deterioration is downstream. European diesel refining margins rose nearly 10% in a single session on Monday and US ULSD futures gained 7.4% to $4.19/gal after Ukraine struck the Taneco refinery at Nizhnekamsk in Tatarstan — one of Russia’s largest, about 1,200km inside Russia, with 13 killed and 78 wounded per regional authorities, nine of them in a hostel — and the Houthis hit Jazan again, pushing its restart from 15 to 30 August. One correction worth carrying: Russia’s gasoline export ban runs outright to 31 January 2027, but the diesel and gasoil restrictions carry producer exemptions from 1 September — the diesel side loosens in under three weeks, and a flat ‘diesel banned to January’ reading overstates the loss. Crude has gone roughly nowhere in a fortnight while the product market kept tightening: the stress has migrated from the barrel to the fuel.
Update — Thu 6 Aug 2026
The escape corridor has reached 81 degrees north. Nearly twenty sanctioned Russian tankers are being routed north of the Severnaya Zemlya archipelago — within about 500 nautical miles of the North Pole, on one of the most northerly commercial passages ever attempted — because ice has blocked the traditional Vilkitsky Strait gateway (gCaptain). Only four vessels on earth are operating farther north, all icebreakers or research ships. Roughly the whole of last season’s 13.1-million-barrel eastbound Arctic crude volume has already departed in this season’s opening weeks — and the risks are keeping pace: one tanker has already reversed course on heavy ice, and three nuclear icebreakers are escorting the traffic. When the safest remaining detour runs within sight of the Pole, the detour ladder is close to fully extended. Meanwhile Europe’s rivers will get little help: this week’s rains will be sporadic and largely miss the drought regions (‘still not enough to make much impact on the low river flows’ — MetDesk), Vienna hit 40.8C, a national record for Austria, and ECMWF models point to a possible fifth major heatwave building by early next week. The Rhine sits at its 1880 record low, Paks is running on a single turbine at just over 10% of capacity after the announced complete shutdown was narrowly avoided, and the restrictions on barges and riverside power generation extend into the deepest weeks of the dry season.
Update — Wed 5 Aug 2026
The blockade is visibly working — which is exactly why a deal is being drafted. Some 50 laden Iranian tankers are idling along Iran’s coast — up from 36 when the US blockade was renewed on 14 July — and advocacy group UANI says it has tracked no laden Iranian crude tanker successfully exiting the Gulf of Oman since then (transponder-off departures possible). Iranian crude in floating storage is up 14% in a month to 135 million barrels (Vortexa), Iranian Light discounts have narrowed to ~$4 under Brent as sellers hold cargoes, and the Shandong refiners who buy most of it are running at ~48% of capacity. Set that against Monday’s reporting that the US has spent ‘virtually all’ of its long-range ATACMS/PrSM missiles, and the shape of the week is clear: both sides are visibly depleting — Iran’s export revenue and floating-storage pool, America’s deep-strike and interceptor stockpiles — and that mutual depletion is what has put a drafted interim proposal on the table. Qatar says a text to free up Hormuz shipping exists; Bloomberg reports both US and Iranian officials sounding optimistic. Oil has priced much of it already: WTI below $75, Brent below $79, down more than 11–12% on the week. A drafted proposal is not a signed one — and the physical strait remains blockaded, thin and abnormal until it is.
Update — Tue 4 Aug 2026
The war is running down its missiles, and the rivers are running down their water. Reuters reports, citing three people familiar with internal data, that the US Army has used ‘virtually all’ of its long-range ATACMS and Precision Strike Missiles in five months of war with Iran — with roughly 65% of Patriot interceptors and at least 38% of THAAD interceptors expended (CSIS estimates said to match internal figures) and a little under half the global Tomahawk supply used (one source; unverified by Reuters). The White House and Pentagon dispute any readiness gap, and CENTCOM has reloaded from stocks elsewhere. This is the material constraint beneath the diplomacy: it pushes Washington toward the negotiated pause the market is already pricing — but it also thins the interceptor shield that Gulf oil infrastructure has sheltered behind. Meanwhile the Rhine hit its lowest level since records began in 1880 — 21cm at Kaub, forecast 17cm by Saturday, with the seasonal bottom still ahead. Diesel barge freight from Rotterdam to Karlsruhe is the costliest since Bloomberg’s data began in 2009; Shell is moving Rhineland deliveries to rail and truck; and Romania’s military detonated a rock formation in the Danube to push water toward the Cernavodă nuclear plant. Two depletions, one pattern: the buffers — munitions stockpiles and river depth alike — are being spent faster than they are being replaced.
Update — Mon 3 Aug 2026
Oil is falling on talks that Iran says are not happening. Brent dropped about $4.65 to $83.28 and WTI roughly $5.20 to $79.47 on Monday morning after President Trump said negotiations with Iran would take place that day — but Iran’s Foreign Ministry says no US–Iran negotiations are under way. Tehran confirms only discussions with Oman over temporary safe passage through Hormuz, and insists the strait cannot return to normal while US military action continues. The fall is expectations, not restored exports: Hormuz remains thin (two laden VLCCs out late last week), two Saudi tankers crossed Bab el-Mandeb as the week opened, and neither route is at reliable pre-war capacity. OPEC+ formally approved its ~188,000 b/d September increase — completing the 1.65 mb/d voluntary-cut rollback, with ~2 mb/d of older cuts running to end-2026 — largely theoretical while producers sit below quota for want of safe export routes. And the infrastructure wars did not pause for the diplomacy: Ukraine says its weekend wave targeted the Saratov refinery, Engels airbase and a Kaluga oil depot (no confirmed refinery shutdown), and at least eight deaths were reported. A market de-escalation, not yet a physical one — and it could reverse quickly if Monday produces no concrete framework or measurable increase in tanker traffic.
Update — Sun 2 Aug 2026
A negotiating pause, not a ceasefire. President Trump says he has cancelled or postponed the planned strikes on Iranian energy targets while Middle Eastern governments try to complete a deal covering Iran’s nuclear programme and the “immediate, complete and total” reopening of Hormuz. Israel is said to have joined; Iran has not publicly accepted — and nothing verified shows normal commercial traffic resuming. The water stayed dangerous regardless: after Saturday’s disabled tanker, the master of a second vessel reported an explosion close alongside ~21nm north-west of Khasab (no damage; attacker unidentified). Iranian drones reached Kuwait, damaging facilities whose nature is undisclosed. The biggest European development is on the Danube: Hungary is shutting the entire Paks nuclear plant — nearly half its electricity, the first complete shutdown in 44 years — for lack of cooling water, possibly for weeks [update, 6 Aug: the complete shutdown was narrowly avoided — a temporary rise in the Danube kept one turbine online at 240 MW, just over 10% of capacity], with demand curbs prepared and imports costed in the hundreds of millions. One durable positive: Turkey and Iraq extended the Kirkuk–Ceyhan pipeline deal by a year with reserved capacity up to 750,000 b/d against ~170–180,000 flowing — a Hormuz bypass secured, on conditions. OPEC+ has an in-principle September increase of ~188,000 b/d, then a Q4 pause — targets, not delivered barrels. Markets closed; Friday’s $90.12 Brent stands.
Update — Sat 1 Aug 2026
A tanker was disabled by an unknown projectile near the entrance to the Strait of Hormuz early Saturday — about 11 nautical miles north-east of Limah, Oman: engine room damaged, the vessel “not under command”, no casualties or pollution initially reported (UKMTO). Its identity, cargo and the party responsible are undisclosed, and we do not attribute the attack. Separately, Reuters — citing CBS News — reported late Friday that the US and Israel are planning a possible bombing campaign against energy-related targets inside Iran, potentially this weekend; President Trump had not given final approval when the report was published, and no target set is specified. That is reported planning, not an operation — and no new Iranian fixed energy facility has been verified hit. The strait remains in its strange in-between state: the IRGC claims two tankers hit and four turned back (unconfirmed), while tracking showed two laden VLCCs transiting — Hormuz is permitting, or failing to prevent, individual passages; it has not returned to normal navigation. July closed with Brent at $90.12 and WTI $84.67 — monthly gains of 24% and 21%. And the conversion story deepened: Russia has begun importing petrol from Morocco (~30,000t of AI-92, unloading at Murmansk), its fourth fuel-supply country, with output near 65% of summer consumption.
Update — Fri 31 Jul 2026
The crisis has moved downstream. Brent eased to about $87.59 (WTI ~$82, both still up roughly 20% on the month) — but the product market set records: European diesel cracks at an all-time $74.66/bbl, US diesel cracks at $93.44, jet above $80, and European diesel inventories at their thinnest since 2022, with total ARA product stocks at a 2014 low (corrected 1 Aug). The refining losses explain it: Saudi Arabia’s ~400 kb/d Jizan refinery has been shut since 27 July (last week’s “no confirmed outage” has resolved the wrong way), part of Kuwait’s Al-Zour is down, Russia’s Ryazan has halted processing (~2 weeks, Reuters sources) and Perm lost a unit carrying ~34% of its capacity — and Moscow has extended fuel-export restrictions to 31 January 2027. Hormuz ran two vessels Thursday, both ballast, both inbound — the directional signal we flagged, at a scale that is a flicker, not a recovery; Bab el-Mandeb improved to 25 crossings, with AIS-dark transits keeping every count a minimum. And the strain is reaching the last detour: a drone hit two gas vessels at Egypt’s Damietta port as SUMED loadings surge. The world does not simply have an oil-supply problem; it has an oil-conversion-and-delivery problem — crude exists, and the system that turns it into fuel in the right place is what is being degraded.
Update — Wed 29 Jul 2026
The pause was a lull, not a settlement. Saudi Arabia said its armed forces, coordinating with US Central Command, carried out joint strikes on Iran-backed groups in eastern Iraq after drones launched from Iraqi territory targeted oil facilities in the kingdom’s Eastern Province — Saudi air defences intercepted those drones and no damage to the facilities has been reported (a separate event from the Houthi strikes near Jizan on 24–25 July). CENTCOM said the groups were behind more than 30 drone attacks in 72 hours; Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces said several headquarters were struck, reporting casualties. Iran denied involvement; Iraq ordered an investigation (Reuters). Oil retraced its fall — Brent back to about $86.79, WTI $81.91 — and Hormuz thinned again to just five commodity vessels on Tuesday. The physical premium, meanwhile, has collapsed rather than persisted: Argus North Sea Dated has fallen from about $103 on 24 July to roughly $86 on 28 July, back in line with the screen. The durable story is the shrinking margin for error — the US Strategic Petroleum Reserve is down to about 307.7 million barrels, its lowest since March 1983, while US commercial stocks stay below seasonal norms, refineries run at 96.1% of operable capacity and US diesel sits above $5.31/gal. Not a shortage — a system with less room to absorb the next shock.
Update — Mon 27 Jul 2026
The shooting has paused; the shipping crisis has not. Brent fell more than 6% on Monday to about $90.58 (WTI ~$83.51) after the US and Iran held fire for a second consecutive day and Oman pressed to restore a ceasefire framework — roughly $11 of war premium out since Brent hit about $102 on 23 July, lifting equities and bonds. But the physical system has barely moved: Hormuz ran in single digits over the weekend (about 7 vessels Friday, 3 Saturday all dark, 7 Sunday; Kpler), and Bab el-Mandeb fell to just 11 crossings on Sunday, the lowest in months, after the Jizan/Yanbu attacks. Physical crude hit two-month highs last week and traders reckon ~10 mb/d of Middle Eastern barrels is still displaced — oil is falling because the market thinks the disruption can be managed, not because the barrels have returned. This is market de-escalation without physical normalisation: the nuclear dispute is unresolved, the US naval blockade still operates, and Hormuz has not reopened. Europe’s winter-fuel deficit is untouched — gas storage about 55% (lowest since 2021), diesel stocks the lowest since 2022, European diesel margins near a record ~$65/bbl.
Update — Sun 26 Jul 2026
The war has begun attacking the infrastructure built to bypass the war. On Saturday the Houthis fired at Aramco installations at Jizan and Yanbu — Saudi Arabia’s Red Sea outlet for crude routed west to avoid Hormuz. Reuters-verified footage showed a column of smoke from the direction of the ~400 kb/d Jizan refinery and trading sources reported possible damage to fuel and oil storage there; Aramco has confirmed no outage or production loss, and the Yanbu-bound missiles were reportedly intercepted with no confirmed damage. The Houthis have declared a blockade of Saudi Arabia and warned all its oil facilities could be targeted. Counter-signal: the US paused its strikes on Iran after a 13-night run, with no Gulf-state retaliation over the weekend — the naval blockade stays in force and Washington is reportedly holding back while a China-initiated diplomatic push continues. That is a political opening, not a reopened chokepoint: Hormuz still ran only about three transits a day on 22–24 July (Kpler), though one laden VLCC with ~2m bbl of Basrah crude did exit. Ukraine’s drone campaign widened to Russia’s Caspian (Lukoil’s Filanovsky platform) and Siberia (a Tyumen refinery fire), and Moscow is extending its gasoline-export ban to end-2026. European gas is repricing too — TTF near €63/MWh and UK gas above 150p/therm, about four-month highs, lifting the cost of the winter storage refill. Markets were closed Saturday; Brent settled Friday at $96.78 (−3.9% on a China-talks report, ~+10% on the week) — a close struck before the weekend attacks, so any Monday rebuild of the risk premium is an inference, not a confirmed move.
Update — Tue 21 Jul 2026
The interim 17 June truce has broken down and US strikes have run a tenth consecutive night. The Red Sea threat has turned concrete: Yemen’s Houthis emailed shipowners declaring an embargo on all ships calling at Saudi ports (Bloomberg), directly threatening Yanbu — the bypass Saudi Arabia has used while Hormuz runs at a near-halt (about four commodity crossings Monday, most dark). Brent touched $91.42 Monday, its highest since 11 June, before easing to about $89 on hopes of a fresh ceasefire — a retreat on diplomacy, not restored supply. European low-sulphur gasoil hit a record premium near $60/bbl over Brent.
Update — Thu 16 Jul 2026
The war has widened on two fronts. US strikes reached Tehran for the first time in this round overnight — alongside Bandar Abbas and coastal missile sites — and US forces disabled a blockade-running oil tanker (the Curaçao-flagged Belma) in Hormuz as it tried to reach Kharg Island, the first vessel stopped by force since the full Iran-only blockade resumed. Iran retaliated against US-allied Bahrain, Kuwait and Jordan. No Iranian oilfield, refinery or the Kharg terminal has been confirmed hit — strikes have stayed on military and maritime targets, which is why Brent sits around $85 ($84.95 settle, 15 Jul) rather than back above $100. Separately, Reuters reports roughly 40% of Russian refining capacity is now offline (repairs and outages, not destroyed) after Ukraine’s sustained drone campaign — the clearest verified physical loss in the system right now.
In his own words — Trump, Truth Social, 13 July 2026
“The Strait of Hormuz is OPEN, and will remain OPEN, with or without Iran.”
“We are reinstating THE IRANIAN BLOCKADE… All other countries will have fair and open use of the Strait.”
“The U.S.A. will be, from this point forward, known as ‘THE GUARDIAN OF THE HORMUZ STRAIT,’ but as such… will be reimbursed, at the rate of 20% on all cargo shipped… The process and formation will begin immediately.”
A 20% levy on a strait carrying roughly a fifth of global oil consumption would be an unprecedented assertion of control, and oil rose on the announcement. There is no executive order, legal framework or collection mechanism — and the IMO Council has ruled that transit through international straits may not be tolled. Iran’s Persian Gulf Strait Authority called passage “currently unfeasible” and suspended permits. Update — Tue 14 Jul: after shipper backlash and the IMO ruling, Trump dropped the 20% fee, replacing it with a push for Gulf trade and investment deals while keeping the Iran-only blockade.
Brent holds above $85 as Trump drops the 20% Hormuz toll but tightens a full Iran-only blockade — Iran strikes two UAE tankers in the ‘safe’ southern lane, threatens a second chokepoint at Bab el-Mandeb, and $100 is in view if the strait's last buffer is hit
The escalation hardened into Tuesday: Brent has jumped above $85 — a four-week high, after a near-10% single-session surge, its biggest daily gain since 2020 — with WTI around $80, after President Trump floated — then, a day later, dropped — a 20% US ‘reimbursement fee’ on all Hormuz cargo, replacing it with a push for Gulf trade and investment deals while tightening a full blockade on Iran-linked shipping. The strait's status is openly contested: both Washington and Tehran have claimed the right to police it, and the IMO Council has ruled that transit may not be tolled. What actually moved tells the story: tanker traffic has fallen to a two-month low — transits down to just 4–13 a day against a ~138 norm (JMIC), with LNG carriers absent and more ships crossing dark. The violence is now hitting commercial tonnage directly — Iran struck two UAE tankers, al-Bahiya and Mombasa, with cruise missiles in Omani waters, killing one crew member and wounding eight. And a second front has opened: Yemen's Houthis fired on Saudi Arabia's Abha airport (intercepted), breaking the March 2022 truce — no Saudi oil was hit, but Saudi spare capacity is the buffer holding the price, and it is now in play alongside the strait. If energy infrastructure is targeted more broadly, $100 oil is back in view (Saul Kavonic, MST Marquee); the IEA has warned the flare-up risks derailing the rebuild of depleted global inventories — the same thin buffers this site has tracked all along.
EU angle: Middle East jet-fuel arrivals into Europe fell from about 330,000 to 60,000 b/d between March and April (IEA), and the EU is coordinating on jet-fuel supply — diesel and jet are where the squeeze reaches European industry and aviation first.
Also active: Russia's halt of Kazakh crude via the Druzhba pipeline to Germany (since 1 May) continues to pressure North West European refining and diesel balances.
Sources: Reuters, Bloomberg, FT, CENTCOM, Kpler, JMIC, IEA, AP, WaPo (16 July 2026).
Big overlooked story
Russia's fuel problem reaches agriculture and domestic supply
President Putin has publicly acknowledged fuel shortages in Russian regions, tying them to Ukrainian drone strikes on oil infrastructure and stressing the need to protect supply for agriculture ahead of the harvest. Refinery capacity is sharply reduced — Reuters reported on 16 July that roughly 40% is offline (plants under repair and outages of varying severity, not destroyed; Ukrainian sources say ~43%), several regions are rationing, and the squeeze is reaching logistics and food systems — the same downstream cascade seen elsewhere: refinery hits → diesel scarcity → agriculture and supply-chain risk. Read our analysis →
Refinery Health Watch
NASA FIRMS VIIRS satellite detections within ~15 km of 24 major EU and Gulf refineries / terminals. Past 24 h. High Fire Radiative Power near a facility may indicate flaring, fire, or process incident — not all detections indicate incidents.
OPEC+ Production — global supply context
Full tracker on AmericasOilWatch ↗OPEC core
22.50mbpd
12 members · EIA, latest available
Russia
10.48mbpd
non-OPEC anchor
CENTCOM Advisory Snapshot
Middle East maritimeSource: U.S. Central Command via DVIDS.
AI Analysis
As of May 2026 — the most recent reporting period available, reflecting a three-month lag from today's date of August 13, 2026 — the EU's average fuel stock position was 80.9 days for petrol, 102.2 days for diesel, and 81.3 days for jet fuel. Against the mandatory minimum of 90 days of net imports, both petrol and jet fuel averages fell short across the bloc. Conditions since May are unknown, and given that several member states have reported strategic reserve releases linked to Middle East supply disruptions, the current position may differ materially from these figures.
The most acute vulnerabilities in May 2026 were concentrated in larger economies and eastern member states. Romania recorded critical levels across all three fuel types, with diesel at just 19.5 days — roughly one-fifth of the mandatory minimum. Poland, Croatia, Italy, and Germany also carried critical petrol and jet fuel positions. Germany, the EU's largest economy, held only 50.3 days of petrol and 58.9 days of jet fuel as of May. Jet fuel was the most systemically weak category: 22 of 27 countries registered critical jet fuel stocks, including major aviation hubs such as France, the Netherlands, Spain, and Denmark. Only Estonia, Slovakia, and Slovenia held jet fuel reserves at or above the 90-day threshold.
On the price side, current data as of August 10, 2026 shows the EU average at €1.79 per litre for petrol and €1.928 for diesel. These levels are consistent with the sustained rise in Brent crude, which has increased 20.4% since late February 2026, from $72.48 to $87.29 per barrel — a move widely attributed to the late-February geopolitical escalation. Denmark and the Netherlands are the most expensive markets for petrol at €2.325 and €2.29 respectively, while Sweden and Malta remain significantly below the EU average at €1.308 and €1.34. This divergence partly reflects domestic tax structures rather than supply conditions alone, but the upward crude trend is exerting broad pressure on consumer prices across the bloc.
The combination of below-minimum stock levels in May, ongoing strategic reserve drawdowns, and a crude price that remains elevated relative to the start of the year leaves the EU's fuel security position under pressure. The three-month reporting lag means policymakers should treat the May data as a floor estimate, not a current snapshot. Countries that were already at critical levels in May — particularly Romania, Poland, Croatia, Italy, and Germany — warrant close monitoring as updated figures become available.
This analysis is generated by AI and may contain errors. It is not financial or safety advice. Always verify critical decisions with official sources including Eurostat, DG Energy, and your national energy agency.
Global Supply Routes — Chokepoint Status
Hormuz, Suez, Bab-el-Mandeb, ARA hub — current risk levels
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EU27 Country Overview
27 countries with data25 of 27 reporting countries are below the 90-day benchmark for at least one fuel type. Data is the latest available from Eurostat; reporting dates vary by country. Stock data is published monthly with an approximate 2-month lag.
Cite this data — Public API
Full docs →Every number on this dashboard is available as JSON via a free, read-only API. CORS-enabled, no authentication, no key required. Built for journalists, analysts, researchers, and LLM agents who want to cite the source rather than scrape the page.
curl https://eurooilwatch.com/api/v1/stocks # EU-27 reserves
curl https://eurooilwatch.com/api/v1/gas # TTF + Henry Hub + AGSI
curl https://eurooilwatch.com/api/v1 # endpoint indexAttribution: cite as "EuroOilWatch — eurooilwatch.com" alongside the underlying institutional source (Eurostat, EC, EIA, etc.) which is included in every payload.
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Data Sources
Crude Oil
Yahoo Finance (BZ=F)
Updated: 13/08/2026
Reserve data reflects the latest available Eurostat submissions per country, not real-time tank levels. Prices are national averages including all taxes. This dashboard refreshes daily to capture new submissions.