EuroOilWatch — EU Fuel Reserve & Price Intelligence
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.
Energy, shipping and food-security risks are converging — 10 critical and 9 elevated situations tracked, from the Strait of Hormuz to Europe’s rivers. View the full board →
5 of 19 corridors verified on the latest review date; individual checks range from 5 Oct 2026 to 8 Nov 2026.
12 of 19 corridors overdue for review, each against its own review interval (7–30 days).
Previous analysis · 67 piecesArchive
- Europe Is Preparing for a Possible War With Russia. It Still Buys Most of Russia's Arctic Gas.
NATO has approved €27 billion to fuel its forces for a possible war with Russia, and France's top general has told the country to be ready to suffer economically for its defence. In the same months, Europe took 85% of the output of Russia's flagship Arctic gas project. A January ban, landing in mid-winter, will test how much of that relationship actually ends.
- What Must Be True for Saudi Arabia's Pipeline to Carry 5.8 Million Barrels a Day
A tracker estimate now broadly supports Riyadh's recovery figure. The public record still does not show how a system running around a destroyed pumping station achieves it.
- Ghalibaf Isn’t Joking
Hours before the Fed’s first rate hike since 2023, Iran’s parliament speaker posted a Taylor rule with two new terms: the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb. It read as a joke. It was a claim about who sets the price of American money.
- The Long Bond Notices
Japan will not put more barrels into the G7 release it signed on Friday. The same morning, its 30-year bond yield hit a record. The oil shock has reached the sovereign balance sheets of the two economies that were supposed to help absorb it.
- The Reported Ebola Curve Is Bending. In Ituri, the Testing Fell First.
Reported Ebola cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo have fallen by a third since early September. In Nord-Kivu the laboratory data support that fall. In Ituri, where three in four cases have occurred, the number of samples tested fell by about as much as the cases did.
- The Fog of the Energy War
A pipeline restarts and nobody outside Aramco can say how much oil is in it. Brent trades near $100 while physical North Sea cargoes have changed hands above $130. The fog of war has settled over energy unevenly: thickest over crude, where every figure comes in three versions, and thin over diesel, where every figure points the same way. Gulf diesel exports are at about a quarter of pre-war, Russia's producer export ban runs to 31 October, and the decision that matters most to fuel supply in Britain, Europe and Latin America this autumn will be taken in Washington.
- The Bombers Are Still in Britain. Trump Has Reportedly Rejected Iran's Exit Ramp.
The United States has not withdrawn the air-power architecture assembled for the Iran war. Twelve B-1 bombers remain at RAF Fairford and are still flying, with tankers and a Rivet Joint concentrated at Mildenhall, contracted transport sustaining the force, and fresh fighters rotating east through Germany. Now the Wall Street Journal reports that Trump has rejected Iran's seven-day ceasefire and Hormuz-reopening proposal and expects bombing to resume after the November midterms. Not evidence of an imminent attack; evidence that the machinery for one has been kept in place.
- France Is Repeating April's Forecourt Shortage. The Market Behind It Is Tighter.
Seventeen per cent of French filling stations are missing at least one fuel; France reached 18% in April under almost exactly the same retail conditions, and 91% of today's affected sites are TotalEnergies stations under a €2.25 diesel cap. Normalised by network size, Total's implied disruption is the same as April (≈46% vs ≈45%) while the rest of the network is doing better (≈2.3% vs ≈4.6%). The forecourt event is a replay. The wholesale market is not: global diesel exports 25% below a year ago, US distillate stocks 14% below seasonal norms at 97% utilisation, ARA gasoil at a four-year low, and crude 24% cheaper than April while diesel cracks rose. France is not the shortage. France is the stress test.
- Europe's Diesel Stocks Measure the Wrong Thing
European diesel inventories held up through September and the Commission says there is no supply problem. Both are true. But inventory measures the barrels already inside the system — not how easily the next barrel replaces them. On that second measure the evidence has deteriorated sharply: Gulf and Russian diesel exports down 75%, refining 'stretched to the limit', Petroline shut, LR2s gone to crude, underwriters reluctant to quote. Europe is not running out of diesel; its ability to replace what it consumes has degraded faster than its stock level reveals.
- The New Fertiliser Map
How the energy shock is rewiring global food supply. Six months after Hormuz went to a near-standstill, the world found replacement fertiliser — it did not find cheap replacement fertiliser. Gulf urea exports fell ~85% yet global imports only ~6%; the crisis has migrated from tonnes to price, and from price to who can still afford to apply. Europe sits at the expensive end of the nitrogen curve, phosphate is the quieter warning, and the Sahel shows where affordability becomes access.
- Europe's Fuel Squeeze: Where Could Relief Actually Come From?
Damaged pipelines, attacks on tankers and widening fuel premiums are changing the question for Europe: how much extra supply can reach its refineries and airports—and how soon?
- El Niño 2026: The WMO Warning and the Fallout That Has Already Started
WMO now puts El Niño's persistence through February 2027 at nearly 100% and expects a very strong peak. The cascade is no longer purely prospective: at the Panama Canal and in Colombia's electricity system, hydrological stress has already moved through operational capacity, price and regulation. Agriculture and broad commodity prices have not yet supplied equivalent confirmation.
- The Diesel Is Still Arriving. The Safety Margin Isn't.
Europe is not running out of diesel. But the global system is travelling farther, drawing on fewer spare suppliers and using increasingly thin buffers to keep the fuel moving. Renewed fighting around the Strait of Hormuz may provide the next test.
- The Physical Margin Call
Disrupted shipping, depleted oil inventories, expensive diesel, debt-financed technology investment and extreme weather are drawing on the same economic shock absorbers. The danger lies in what happens when those buffers fail together.
- The Oil Trade Has Gone Dark
Visible ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz has nearly stopped, yet millions of barrels may still be leaving the Gulf through covert shuttle operations. The figures are not necessarily contradictory — but they are dangerously easy to misread, and four different measurements are being confused for one.
- The 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. Unit 1 has been offline since late July for the same reason. Romania's only nuclear station — normally about a fifth of national generation — is now entirely out, replaced by a lignite unit brought back from reserve, hydro within the limits of available water, and imports.
- One River, Two Outcomes: Paks Restarts While Cernavodă Shuts Down
Rainfall raised the Danube enough for Paks to climb back to about 25% of capacity. Romania received no equivalent relief: Cernavodă disconnected its second reactor on 13 August, leaving both offline. A basin-wide drought can ease at one infrastructure node while worsening at another.
- Hormuz 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. That is one of several measurement traps buried in the most useful official record of this crisis: SEVERE is not a measure of closure, 80 incidents are not 80 attacks, and 30 U.S.-facilitated transits cannot simply be divided by a 138-vessel baseline.
- France Is Spending €10 Billion to Escape Diesel. The Route May Not Be Ready When the Canal Opens.
The Seine-Nord Europe Canal could remove a million lorry journeys a year and connect French industry to the great inland waterways of northern Europe. But the canal is due in 2032, while the large-barge route towards Paris, Rouen and Le Havre may not be ready until 2035. France is not simply betting that it can build the canal. It is betting that the rest of the network, the freight and the money will arrive in the right order.
- The War Is Spending Its Buffers. All of Them at Once.
Reuters reports 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. The missiles are the latest entry in the ledger this war has been writing since February: safe detours, commercial fuel stocks, river depth, insurance appetite — and now the arsenal itself. Every buffer is a stockpile, and stockpiles are being spent faster than they are being replaced.
- As Hormuz Falters, Iraq's Pipeline to the Mediterranean Matters Again
For two and a half years, Kirkuk–Ceyhan was trapped in an arbitration-triggered legal and commercial deadlock rather than destroyed by war. This week Turkey and Iraq extended its operating arrangement, reserved capacity more than four times recent flows, and deepened investment in the fields and infrastructure behind it. Hormuz did not reopen the pipeline. It made its underused Mediterranean exit strategically valuable again.
- The Danube Falls. Half of Hungary's Electricity Goes With It.
Hungary came within hours of the first complete shutdown of its Paks nuclear plant in 44 years — not because of war, sanctions or a fault, but because the river that cools it is too low. A temporary rise in the Danube kept one turbine online; nearly 90% of the plant's capacity is unavailable. Europe's drought has crossed a line: from making energy expensive to switching it off.
- Russia Has Oil. It Is Now Importing Petrol From Morocco.
Thirty thousand tonnes of AI-92 unloading at Murmansk will not rescue anyone. That is what makes it worth reading carefully: each new route Russia uses to obtain fuel is a depth-gauge reading on how far its refining system has been pushed — and the gauge now reaches a North African transshipment hub.
- Europe Has Crude. What It Is Running Short Of Is Diesel.
Brent is easing. European diesel refining margins just set an all-time record of $74.66 a barrel, European diesel inventories are at their thinnest since 2022, and total ARA product stocks are at a 2014 low. The market is saying, as clearly as a market can, that the scarce thing is no longer the barrel — it is the machine that turns the barrel into fuel.
- Hormuz, Bab el-Mandeb, Suez: The Oil Market Is Running Out of Safe Detours
No single event has closed the world's oil system. Instead, each escape route has inherited the load — and then the threat — of the one before it. The alternatives are becoming progressively fewer, longer and more expensive, and this week the strain reached the last big detour.
- France Has One of Europe's Stronger Oil Reserves — but Its Fuel System Is More Vulnerable Than It Looks
France's strategic reserve is large, dispersed and deliberately weighted toward finished fuels. But the country imports more than half its diesel, jet demand is rising and Europe's commercial jet-fuel buffer is thin — a strong reserve sitting on top of a tight everyday fuel system.
- The Chokepoints Are Becoming Tollbooths
In a single month, three different actors have proposed charging ships for passage through the world's two most important oil corridors. The barrels are not the story. The billing is.
- Oil Is Pricing a Pause. Shipping Is Waiting for Proof.
Brent fell almost 6% on Monday on hope of a US–Iran pause. But fewer than ten ships a day are still crossing Hormuz, and Red Sea traffic just hit a multi-month low. The screen and the sea are telling two different stories — and only one of them moves oil.
- Russia Is Importing Fuel While Exporting Crude
One of the world's largest oil producers has begun importing gasoline. That paradox is the clearest measure of what Ukraine's refinery campaign has actually achieved — and the seam it found between owning oil and being able to use it.
- Europe's Summer Gas Refill Is Being Repriced by the Iran War
One of the Middle East war's most direct routes into European and British homes this summer is not crude but gas — rising during the exact season when Europe must rebuild an unusually depleted winter buffer.
- The War Reaches the Route Built to Bypass Hormuz
Saudi Arabia spent decades building and expanding a way to move oil without the Strait of Hormuz. This weekend the war followed it west — turning a single-chokepoint crisis into a correlated-corridor problem that Friday’s market close could not yet contain.
- Europe's Reliability Debt
Brussels asked refiners to defer maintenance to protect fuel supply during the Hormuz crisis. Nobody has published what that cost — so we estimated it, with the assumptions exposed so they can be attacked.
- The Chokepoints Inside Europe
As the Rhine and Danube fall, Europe is discovering that landing energy at its ports is not the same as delivering it. A river does not have to close to become a chokepoint — it only has to grow too shallow to carry what Europe expects of it.
- The Strategic Reserve Nobody Can Measure
European law requires grid operators to rehearse restoring the network — and imposes professional 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.
- Bypassing a Chokepoint 135 Barrels at a Time
Iraq's tanker-truck convoys are keeping some oil moving around the Strait of Hormuz. They are also demonstrating why the infrastructure of cheap energy cannot be improvised after a crisis begins.
- The Energy Shock That Could Detonate the Yen Carry Trade
Japan's dependence on imported energy does more than expose it to higher oil and LNG prices. By forcing the hand of the Bank of Japan, it could help destabilise one of the largest and least visible sources of borrowed money in global markets.
- Europe Is About to Sanction Itself
Brussels wants to cripple Russia's Arctic LNG fleet before Europe has secured the gas to replace it. That is not strategy. It is self-inflicted scarcity.
- From Hormuz to the Checkout
The fertiliser shock hiding inside the energy crisis — how sulphur trapped behind Hormuz, a Russian diesel ban and Chinese export controls travel through the global fertiliser market into European food prices, just as France's maize crop fails. A compound cascade from the Strait of Hormuz to the supermarket checkout.
- The World Is a Pressure Cooker — and Energy Is the Flame Beneath It
The next global crisis may not begin in an oilfield, a bank or a government-bond market. It may begin when pressure in one system removes the remaining safety valves from all the others. Energy is the flame, sovereign debt the weakened vessel, hidden leverage the pressure — and collateral the likeliest point of fracture.
- Europe's Self-Inflicted Exposure: Record Russian LNG, Stalled Electrification, and a Gulf Oil Shock
In one week Europe bought a record amount of Russian LNG, a Gulf war reinserted a premium into its imported oil, and the IEA's own chief called the continent's failure to electrify a 'major mistake.' Those facts side by side are the whole of Europe's energy predicament — and the exposure now being stress-tested at Hormuz is, to a substantial degree, self-inflicted.
- Why Cheap Energy Isn’t Always Cheap
A cheap unit of energy is not a cheap energy system. Reading the modern grid through Ricardo — comparative advantage, the theory of rent, the electricity merit order — plus Jevons, EROI and chokepoint rent: why apparently cheap energy carries hidden costs, why crises hand windfalls to the lowest-cost producers, and why the scarcity prices that should pay for resilience are the ones policy keeps switching off.
- Hormuz Is Not Reopened — It Is Becoming a Controlled High-Risk Corridor as a Second Diesel Shock Emerges
The oil market is fighting two wars at once — renewed Hormuz risk and Russia's diesel export ban — yet crude stays contained near $76 while European diesel margins hit a record. On the evidence of this week, the next shock is surfacing downstream, in the fuels that move trucks, ships and food, before it shows in headline Brent.
- The Second Shock Is Not the First
On 8 July tankers burned in the Strait of Hormuz and a president tore up a ceasefire — and Brent moved less than five per cent. That calm is not resilience but depletion: a buffer-by-buffer audit of a system that has spent every shock absorber it used in the spring, a model pre-registered before it was run, and the one figure that lands mid-month.
- Hormuz as a Toll Road: Why the Tanker Strikes Are Enforcement, Not Chaos
Three tankers were struck in the Strait of Hormuz on 7 July. Read as random violence, it looks like the ceasefire unravelling. Read against what Iran is actually demanding — control of the routes and a fee for passage — the strikes are something more deliberate: enforcement of a claim to own the strait.
- A Record Crack Spread Is Not a Record Profit
Refining margins have roughly doubled to about $60 a barrel — a level seen only in genuine crises. But the headline 3-2-1 crack flatters refiners: it prices their crude at a cheap benchmark they may not be running and nets out no costs. Read it as a product-tightness gauge, not a profit figure.
- A Low Oil Price Is Not Safety: Hormuz's Two-Speed Reopening
Crude is falling as stranded Gulf barrels finally sail — but the backlog is nearly exhausted, major shipping lines are staying away, Hormuz is still officially rated a 'substantial' threat, and Europe's diesel is tightening even as crude eases. A low oil price is not evidence the strait is safe.
- The Attrition Trap: Who Runs Out of Cushion First?
Even as the U.S. bombs Iran and tankers burn off Oman, oil is being shorted — proof the fight is no longer about crude availability. It is a war of attrition over buffers: the SPR, OPEC+ spare capacity, diesel stocks, and Iran's own economy. For Europe — short the refined barrel and reliant on the global cushion — the question is who meets the next shock with nothing left.
- Crude Is Falling — Diesel Isn't. The Hidden Stress Point
While Brent crashes to its lowest since February, diesel has barely moved — U.S. distillate stocks sit about 12 million barrels below the five-year average and refining margins are at multi-week highs. The tightness has rotated from crude to products, and for Europe — short the refined barrel — diesel and jet are the real security question, not the crude price.
- The Oil Crisis Is Not Ending — It Is Moving Downstream
Falling crude prices are tempting the world to call the oil crisis over. It isn't ending — it's changing shape, moving downstream from a single chokepoint into a distributed resilience crisis spanning refineries, products, tankers, insurance, inventories and sanctions. A tour of the new weak points — and why crude can fall while the real fuel economy stays fragile.
- Is Turkey the First Domino? Pressure-Testing the Oil-Dollar Cascade
An oil shock becomes a dollar shock becomes a Treasury problem — and Turkey, the most reserve-stressed major importer in this crisis, is where to test whether that cascade is actually underway. The mechanism is sound and Turkey is genuinely strained. But the data says lira defence more than fuel bills, mostly gold swaps that came back, and no sign yet of the wider domino run. For Europe — more Gulf-dependent than the US — the transmission channel is the one to watch. Turkey is a gauge flashing amber, not a fuse already lit.
- Russia's Fuel Shortage Is Becoming a Food-Logistics Warning
Russia is not running out of food — but a widening, drone-driven refining-and-distribution crisis, clearest in Crimea, is turning fuel into the bottleneck through which food, logistics and public confidence must all pass. And as one of the world's major diesel exporters loses spare capacity, the strain does not stop at Russia's petrol stations.
- The Missing Barrel: Why Energy Infrastructure Is the Blind Spot in the Oil Shock
When conflict threatens the Gulf, the world asks: can the oil still flow? It is the right question to start with and the wrong one to stop at. Oil moves through a long, fragile machine — pipelines, ports, insurers, refineries, gas systems, power grids, control software — and the next oil shock may arrive not as a shortage of crude but as diesel scarcity, a refinery outage, a cyberattack or a grid failure: crude available, but not usable. The market counts barrels; societies depend on throughput.
- Fragile De-escalation: What the U.S.–Iran MOU Changes for Europe
A tentative U.S.–Iran memorandum of understanding has shifted Europe's oil-risk picture from active supply shock toward fragile de-escalation. The relief is real — but a paper deal isn't barrels, and the satellite-transit data that would confirm a reopening lags by about a week. Acute risk reduced; recovery unverified.
- Why a Hormuz Shutdown Doesn't Automatically Mean $200 Oil
A sustained closure of the Strait of Hormuz wouldn't inevitably pin oil at $200. Here's why the spike self-limits, why a permanent cutoff is the shakiest assumption in the scenario, and why 'the West has no cards' is overstated.
- Europe's Borrowed Calm: The Hormuz Inventory Runway and the End of the Cheap-Security Assumption
Brent near $92 looks like relief, but Europe is meeting demand from storage. Strip out the strategic, on-water and opaque stock and the accessible cushion is thinning toward a two-decade low — a runway of months, not years — while the closure quietly inverts the fossil-is-secure assumption.
- From Hormuz to Hunger, Six Weeks On: The Fertilizer Channel Is Transmitting the Shock
When From Hormuz to Hunger argued in April that fertilizer was the hinge turning an oil shock into a food shock, it was ahead of the institutions. They have now caught up. But the honest reading is narrow: the mechanism is being validated — the mortality scenarios are not, and can't be yet. Keeping those two apart is the whole point.
- Institutional Failure Mode Typology: A Five-Mode Diagnostic Framework for Compound Cascade Risk
The perceptual-side companion to the Compound Cascade Systems Modelling Framework. Five recurring structural mechanisms by which institutions fail to perceive compound cascade risk — mandate-bounded blindness, model selection bias, sunk-cost epistemology, audience-induced distortion, and coordination failure — derived from seventeen foundational sources and calibrated against five case studies: Iran 1979, Challenger, the 2008 financial crisis, Iraq WMD, and the 2023 regional-banking failures.
- From Hormuz to Bundibugyo: A Second Case for the Compound Cascade Framework
The WHO declared a Public Health Emergency of International Concern over a Bundibugyo Ebola outbreak in eastern DRC on 17 May. Most coverage is fixed on case counts. The more important reading is structural — and it is the second cascade case the Compound Cascade Modelling Framework has been waiting for.
- Beyond the Strait: Why Iran's Next Target Set Matters More Than Hormuz
Trump now says a peace framework with Iran is 'largely negotiated.' Markets are pricing the relief rally. They are missing the more important story: thresholds crossed at Kuwait and Barakah cannot be un-set by a ceasefire, and the oil market is still pricing a war when it should be pricing a regime change.
- The 2026 Oil Black Swan No One Saw Coming — And the Four Doom Loops It Just Activated
Brent is at $107. Physical crude landing at Rotterdam this week is changing hands above €140 a barrel — a 43% premium the futures benchmark doesn't show. The 2026 crunch isn't four shocks running in parallel; it's one shock that has set four feedback loops in motion. Once you can see the loops, the headlines decode.
- Europe Heads Into Storage Refill Season With No Plan B for Iranian Oil
European storage levels are the lowest since the 2022 Ukraine shock, the ECB has paused rate cuts, and the eurozone is bearing a meaningful share of the cost of an operation it did not design and is not running. Three weeks into Trump's Iran blockade, two stories are being told. Both have receipts.
- Europe's Exposure to a Global Oil Supply Shock: Scale, Transmission Mechanisms, and Economic Consequences
A Hormuz disruption would be one of the largest oil shocks in modern history. Europe is not insulated — exposure is indirect but systemic, concentrated in refined fuels, and amplified by global pricing.
- Macron: Hormuz Reopening 'Days and Weeks' Away as TotalEnergies Warns of Scarcity
Emmanuel Macron told reporters on 25 April that France is targeting a full Hormuz reopening 'in the coming days and weeks.' Hours earlier, TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanné warned that two or three more months of blockage would push the world into 'a scarcity of energy.' France is pushing hard for a reason — its own jet-fuel buffer is below 60 days.
- Strait of Hormuz Reopens: What It Means for EU Fuel Supply
The Strait of Hormuz has fully reopened following diplomatic resolution. The compound supply crisis that simultaneously closed both primary Gulf export corridors is partially resolved — but the path back to normal EU stock levels is measured in months, not days.
- The Anatomy of a System Shock: What a Prolonged Strait of Hormuz Closure Really Means for Europe
A Hormuz crisis is not just an oil-price story. It is a systems shock that hits diesel, freight, fertiliser, food inflation and political stability. Europe is unlikely to face literal famine — but the stress is real and compounding.
- Ireland's Real Energy Crisis: Not an Oil Shortage, But a System Exposed to Shock
Ireland is not facing a simple oil shortage. It is facing a wider energy-security problem: extreme import dependence, gas vulnerability, and a system that just proved how quickly it can fracture.
- Can the USA, Canada and Venezuela Replace Lost Middle East Oil?
North America can cushion a Middle East oil shock, but it cannot quickly replace a major Gulf disruption. We examine the data behind the replacement thesis.
EU fuel reserves in August 2026 are under severe strain in petrol and jet fuel, with the overall dataset rated critical.
Data period: 2026-08 · Updated 11 Nov 2026, 23:42
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EU Average Fuel Reserves (Days of Supply)
As of August 2026 · 26/27 countries reporting · Eurostat
Petrol
Min: 90d
Diesel
Min: 90d
Jet Fuel
Min: 90d
OilWatch reference: 90 days of consumption cover, per product
Unweighted mean of the assessable national days-of-cover figures — each country counts equally, whatever its size; not the EU's aggregate stock-to-consumption ratio. 76 of 81 national figures are assessable and enter the means; 5 withheld — LT jet fuel (reported zero, unresolved — policy); EE jet fuel (consumption reported zero — undefined); RO petrol (stock not reported); RO diesel (stock not reported); RO jet fuel (stock not reported). A mean that moves because a figure was withheld or restored reflects assessability, not a change in reserves.
Directive 2009/119/EC requires emergency stocks equivalent to 90 days of average daily net imports or 61 days of average daily inland consumption, whichever is greater, in crude equivalent across all products. The days shown here are a different measure — one product against its own consumption — and do not establish compliance or non-compliance with it. See Methodology for details.
EU Average Reserves — 18-Month Trend
Market Prices
Brent Crude
▲ +0.94 (+1.0%)
Brent (EUR)
EU Avg Petrol
EU Avg Diesel
European Gas — TTF vs Henry Hub + AGSI Storage
Updated dailyTTF (front-month)
€87.22/MWh
▲ 0.00%
Henry Hub
$3.241/MMBtu
▼ 1.67%
Europe pays vs US
8.75×
+$25.13/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
49.4days
strategic + commercial
Most-stressed
12.8days
Poland · 20 of 24 assessable critical · 3 withheld
ARA hub commercial
—
source discontinued (last w/e 2026-04-15) · latest figures on /supply
Open the full Jet Fuel Tracker — 27-country breakdown, ARA hub trend, 18-month history, UK context
→Global Oil — Where We Stand
Updated 10 Nov 2026
Update — Tue 10 Nov 2026
Crude fell fast; the pressure didn’t. Brent settled at $92.57 on 9 November, down 5.85% on the day and its lowest since late August, after falling about 16% the previous week (Reuters). Trump said renewed strikes on Iran were highly unlikely while talks continue. He also said he was content to keep the naval blockade in place, and a senior Iranian official said Tehran won’t negotiate until Washington acts on conditions from the June interim agreement (Reuters). Physical signals point lower too: Dated Brent has slipped below futures (Morgan Stanley), and OPEC output rose 1.38 mb/d in October (Reuters survey). Laden LNG tankers leaving Hormuz rose to 31 in October from 23 (S&P Global via Reuters). Diesel is lagging crude: in the week to 4 November, Singapore gasoil fell about 4% while Dated Brent fell about 12% (ACCC, Argus data).
Europe’s gas cushion is thinner than last winter. EU storage was 72.4% full on gas day 8 November, against 82.6% a year earlier (AGSI-derived). Germany’s regulator puts German storage at 59.2% and rates the risk of stressed supply as low. In France, 11% of stations reported a supply difficulty at 09:00 on 10 November, down from 14% on 8 November, but Grand Est was still at 22% (official dashboard). DGEC’s diesel series for mainland France excluding Corsica fell from €2.3458 on 16 October to €2.1779 on 6 November. Unions have called public- and private-sector strikes for 17 November.
Update — Sun 8 Nov 2026
Oil fell 16% in a week; the attacks did not stop. Brent settled at $98.32 on 6 November, down more than 16% on the week (CNBC), after an 8.7% fall on 4 November as Vice President Vance blamed the midterm defeat on the war. Talks have since stalled: Iran sent a proposal through Qatar but will discuss it only once US demands are met (Reuters), and Eurasia Group cut its odds of a deal to 10%. UKMTO counted 11 attacks on ships in the week to 4 November, three of which sank; a seafarer was killed aboard the tanker Velos Sapphire, and on 7 November a tanker caught fire off Khasab and another was struck in the strait. The US struck Qeshm Island again, strikes President Trump called ’minor’, and on 8 November set up a task force to cut Iran’s land supply routes.
Europe’s jet fuel cover fell sharply in August. Eurostat’s August figures put the unweighted EU average at 47.8 days of jet fuel; the same 22 countries averaged 60.9 days in July (OilWatch calculation). 19 of the 22 assessable figures are rated critical, with Poland lowest at 12.8 days. Diesel cover rose to 96.6 days, above the 90-day reference line. Greece, Romania and Sweden reported no August stocks, so their figures are withheld.
Update — Tue 3 Nov 2026
A 7% fall, then US strikes. Brent settled at $104.77 on 2 November, down 7.63%, on hopes of an end to the war. Those hopes faded: the Doha round had ended with altered proposals but no breakthrough. US officials then reported limited strikes on Iran’s Qeshm Island, describing them as self-defence against attacks on shipping and not a resumption of major combat (NBC News). Brent was $106.61 at 07:44 GMT on 3 November (Reuters), recovering about a fifth of Monday’s fall. UKMTO reported two more vessels hit on 1–2 November, off Lima, Oman, and east of Ras Al Khafji. Tehran says contacts with Washington continue; no deal has been announced.
France’s diesel relief has begun, and the reserve will not be rebuilt. Sales of up to 10 million barrels of strategic diesel began on 1 November. The government estimates 12–18c/L off at the pump, arriving progressively; on mid-October prices, 18c is the top of the range (OilWatch calculation). A second decree lowers stockholding obligations to match, so France enters winter with a smaller diesel reserve. Petrol is not covered. Gas is the other pressure: Europe’s TTF and Asia’s JKM both averaged about $28/MMBtu in October, among the highest since 2022, even as US LNG exports to Europe rose to 6.89 Mt (LSEG via Reuters).
Update — Fri 30 Oct 2026
No deal, and attacks at a record. Saudi, Pakistani, Turkish and Iranian officials met in Tehran on 26–27 October and agreed only to keep talking. Mediators now aim to restart US–Iran talks after the 3 November midterms. October has seen 30 ship attacks, a record month (Washington Institute), and UKMTO reported a tanker on fire off Khasab on 29 October. Kpler puts October crude through Hormuz at 16.7m b/d, against about 19m before the war. A 27 October Houthi attack started a fire at Saudi Arabia’s Ras Tanura terminal; a source told Bloomberg it was contained.
Relief is announced, not yet delivered. Europe will release about 42 million barrels of emergency stocks over three months, roughly half of it diesel (French government, 29 October). The EU average diesel price fell to €2.091/L on the 26 October bulletin, from €2.139: the first real move in a month. Russia’s first US-bound diesel cargo sailed on 23 October, and Reuters reports Moscow will extend its diesel export ban to year-end.
Update — Wed 28 Oct 2026
France’s diesel stress is turning from price into availability. Confirmed diesel ruptures reached 9.3% of stations early on 27 October. That is double the 4.6% on 22 October and just above the September baseline, but still below our 11% national alert threshold. At 09:00 the government tracker showed 20% of Grand Est stations short of petrol and/or diesel. The gap is widest at TotalEnergies stations, for two reasons. Its €2.25/L diesel cap draws motorists in. And its Normandie refinery, which normally supplies about 12% of French station fuel, began a roughly 20-day maintenance shutdown on 13 October during the CGT strike. France’s 10-million-barrel strategic diesel release is due to reach distributors from today, and the government expects the effect at the pump from 1 November. This is elevated and deteriorating distribution stress, not yet proof of a nationwide physical shortage.
EU pump prices have stalled, and the plateau is partly bought with tax cuts. The EU average diesel price was €2.139/L on 19 October. That is 4.4% below the 28 September peak, 34.2% above pre-war, and barely changed for three weeks. Germany’s €2.266 is held down by a 17c/L tax cut that runs to year-end. ARA gasoil stocks have rebuilt 6% on September, to 13.33 million barrels, but jet fuel has overtaken diesel as Europe’s tighter product (Platts).
Gulf exports are weakening, not recovering. Gulf crude exports fell for a fourth straight week, and Hormuz flows were about 60% of normal (ANZ via Reuters, 27 October), a market estimate rather than metered data. October has the most ship attacks in the Washington Institute’s series since 2017. On 26 October, Pakistan presented Iran with a settlement proposal. Iran has not accepted, and no reopening of Hormuz has been announced. Egypt’s parliament has authorised military support for Saudi Arabia. Russian diesel output is rising towards about 180,000 tonnes a day, but no cargo has been shown reaching Europe. Brent settled at $115.81 on 26 October.
Borrowing costs eased. The France–Germany 10-year spread fell to 156.4 bp on 26 October, back below our 160 bp threshold, and Moody’s held France at Aa3 with a negative outlook. The ECB decides on Thursday: 70 of 73 economists expect a hold at 2.50%, and most expect a December hike. Diplomacy is improving at the margin, but no physical supply change has been verified. Europe’s problem this week is distribution, not crude.
Update — Thu 22 Oct 2026
A second front has opened on Saudi energy. On 21 October debris from a drone intercepted over Aramco’s Shaybah field killed two contractors; the Energy Ministry said operations were unaffected. The same day, an attack on Dammam’s King Fahd International Airport killed two people and wounded eight, the second attack there in ten days. Washington has ordered non-emergency staff out of Saudi Arabia. The exposure is the bypass: the East–West pipeline ends at Yanbu, within Houthi range, and was temporarily shut after drone attacks in September. Iran’s IRGC claims it struck four tankers in the northern Gulf on 22 October; the vessels are unnamed and the claims unconfirmed. Front-month Brent traded near $111.6 early on 22 October, after a five-month high on 20 October.
Diesel relief is mostly still on paper. The IEA’s 15 October decision speeds up barrels already pledged; it adds no new oil. By the end of September, Europe had delivered 76 million of its 122 million barrels (IEA, via IRU). France now has Gulf diesel commitments of 295,000 tonnes a month, just over 10% of its consumption. But Bahrain’s and most UAE refining sits inside the Gulf, and Saudi Red Sea product is within Houthi range. ICE gasoil was near $1,455 a tonne, about $195 a barrel. At 09:00 on 22 October, 9% of French stations reported a petrol and/or diesel outage, with Grand Est at 17%.
Gas and borrowing costs. EU gas storage was 74.6% full on 21 October, the lowest for the date since records began in 2011 (GIE). TTF is near €90/MWh, its highest since late 2022. France’s 10-year yield reached about 5.08%, its highest since 2002, and the OAT–Bund spread about 160 bp, the widest since the euro-zone debt crisis. Moody’s reviews France’s rating on Friday 23 October. Europe’s supply problem is now about refining and routes, not crude.
Update — Sat 17 Oct 2026
The IEA has sped up March’s release; it has not added to it. On 15 October the IEA Governing Board agreed to accelerate the remaining volumes of March’s collective action, including more than 20 million barrels of diesel “as soon as possible” (Reuters, 15 October). About 330 million barrels have been released so far. None of the diesel is new: it comes from the roughly 100 million barrels still owed under the March pledge. On our arithmetic, replacing the 390 kb/d fall in EU diesel and gasoil imports between March and September (Kpler, via Reuters) for a four-month winter would take about 47 million barrels.
Crude is coming back. Diesel is not. The IEA’s October Oil Market Report puts Middle East refined-product exports at 1.9 mb/d in September, against 4.7 mb/d before the war. It does not expect lost inventories to be rebuilt before the second half of 2027. Combined net diesel exports from Russia and the Middle East fell by 1.3 mb/d in September. The four suppliers Europe would normally turn to are all constrained at once. The Middle East is constrained by damage, Russia by its export ban to 31 October, China by monthly quotas, and the United States by a willingness to use exports as leverage.
The attack rate in Hormuz has changed. At least ten commercial vessels were attacked between 11 and 13 October, six on 11 October alone, the most reported in a single day of the war (UKMTO). More than 20 have been attacked this month, most of them oil tankers. The container ship GFS Pride, hit in the strait on 13 October, sank the next day; the IMO counts it as the second vessel sunk in the war. Kpler’s seven-day average of oil through Hormuz was 9.3 mb/d to 12 October, about 46% below its pre-war baseline. The bypass is under fire too. Houthi strikes have hit Riyadh’s airport four times, and on 13 October a missile struck an Aramco administrative building in Dhahran, causing a limited fire and no casualties.
What the screen does not show. Brent futures traded near $104 on 15 October. That figure understates physical crude: Dated Brent was $125.44 on 6 October in the latest EIA data, and ICE gasoil was about $1,437 a tonne, roughly $193 a barrel. EU gas storage was 73.9% full on 12 October, against 83.2% a year earlier (GIE). Europe has not run out of fuel. It has less room to absorb the next shock than at any point since the war began. Full analysis
Correction — Fri 9 Oct 2026
The pipeline had recovered sooner than we said. Our 4 October update gave the East–West pipeline as about 2.65 million b/d, Kpler’s 29 September estimate. Later reports had already superseded it: an unnamed source told Argus on 1 October that flows had recovered to about 5.5 million b/d, and Kpler put them at about 5.5 million b/d on 5 October, with about 4 million available for export at Yanbu. On 6 October Saudi Arabia’s energy minister reported 5.8 million barrels, without a time unit. The sentence is corrected in the update below; this note stays permanently.
Update — Sat 10 Oct 2026
10 October 2026 — Saudi bypass running; sea lanes beyond it are not secure. Saudi Arabia says its East–West Pipeline was carrying 5.8 million b/d on 6 October. That is a single ministerial figure, not yet shown as sustained. On Kpler’s estimates, Middle East crude exports are back at pre-war volume, but more of that volume now depends on the Red Sea route. Control of the Yemeni coast at Bab el-Mandeb is still contested, and Houthi attacks on Saudi targets escalated this week. No strike on the pipeline or Yanbu was confirmed this week.Full analysis
Update — Fri 9 Oct 2026
China is selling again, modestly. China will resume October refined-fuel exports after the Golden Week halt, with about 3.7 million tonnes of diesel, gasoline and jet approved for the month, according to industry sources cited by Reuters on 8 October; analysts expect that to ease tightness only modestly. It reopens one of the exporters whose withdrawal narrowed the pool Europe buys from. The IEA Governing Board meets on 14–15 October to set country shares of the release, and Germany says it will release only the volume already set in March.
A hurricane has taken most US Gulf crude offline. Hurricane Isaias was a Category 2 storm at 105 mph early on 9 October, with landfall expected tonight or early Saturday between Mississippi and the Florida Panhandle (National Hurricane Center). Operators had shut in 62.9% of US Gulf oil output, about 1.28 million b/d, by 8 October (gCaptain, citing the federal offshore regulator). That is upstream crude: the forecast track lies east of the Houston, Port Arthur and Lake Charles refining hubs, and no refinery or port closure has been confirmed. Brent traded around $103.6 late on 8 October, up about 3.4% on the 7 October settle of $100.20 — a late-session quote from this site’s own feed, not yet a settled close.
The Gulf is no quieter. A tanker was hit by multiple projectiles 94 km north of Qatar’s coast, with casualties reported — the first tanker attack in the western Gulf in weeks (UKMTO, reported by Al Jazeera on 8 October). Iran’s foreign minister said Tehran would answer US proposals on reopening the strait within days. In France, the government dashboard showed 9% of stations short of at least one fuel at 07:00 on 9 October, with Grand Est worst at 15%. The Rhine at Kaub had edged up to 6 cm by 09:00 on 9 October (unaudited raw readings), still far below the level at which barges load normally.
Update — Thu 8 Oct 2026
The hundred million barrels are March’s pledge delivered faster, not new supply. The IEA said on 7 October that about 325 million of the 400 million barrels agreed in March have been released, and that releasing everything still owed would bring about 100 million more — the sum of outstanding national obligations, since over-deliveries do not reduce what others owe. Members backed completing those releases sooner, diesel first; EU governments said any release must stay within the March allocation, and country shares go to the IEA Governing Board next week. France made the first national commitment: Prime Minister Sébastien Lecornu said on 7 October it would make 10 million barrels of strategic diesel available to distributors, with how much has reached depots not yet reported. The market has already given back the relief: ICE gasoil touched $1,435.25 a tonne on 7 October and settled at $1,389.50 (Financial Times).
The lifeline came with terms, and the routes are tightening again. Washington ruled out a diesel export ban on 2 October after warning France and Germany to draw down emergency stocks, and the G7 undertook to avoid new energy-export restrictions; the first test is the twenty-day diesel window to about 22 October. After the heaviest week of tanker attacks of the war, Kpler put crude through Hormuz down 27% on the week to at least 10.1 million b/d, about 74% of pre-war (Reuters, 8 October), while Vortexa put Gulf refined-fuel exports at about 60% of pre-war in September against 91% for crude (Reuters, 6 October). Crude has largely come back; finished fuel has not. Chinese refiners’ product exports remain suspended beyond Hong Kong and Macau, and Russia’s diesel export ban runs to 31 October.
The Rhine has reached the refinery gate. The Kaub gauge read 0 cm at 09:00 on 8 October, after −6 cm on 1 October and a recovery to 9 cm on the 4th (unaudited raw readings); below about 30 cm the Upper Rhine is barely workable for most barges. Shell’s 7 October update attributed reduced utilisation at its Rheinland refinery to low Rhine water, without quantifying the loss. Independent ARA gasoil stocks averaged 12.59 million barrels in September, up 4% on August (Insights Global via ENGINE) — fuel can sit at Rotterdam while inland depots run down.
What is not happening. The European Commission said on 2 October that EU diesel supply remained stable for the time being. France’s forecourt gaps are concentrated in a capped-price network: independent trackers counted about 14% of stations short of at least one fuel on 8 October but about 5% short of diesel. Gas is the second winter exposure: EU storage was 72.83% full on 6 October against roughly 83% a year earlier, with Germany at 59.23% (GIE AGSI+). Europe is not running out of fuel. It is spending reserves to defend today’s supply while the routes and refineries it needs to refill them become less dependable.
Correction — Tue 6 Oct 2026
We said a US diesel export ban was still under discussion. It had already been ruled out. The 4 October update said a ban was “still discussed daily” and that no order had been reported. President Trump had ruled it out on 2 October, after the G7 agreed its stock release: “we’re not going to be doing the export ban” (Transport Topics, 2 October). The sentence is corrected in the update below; this note stays permanently.
Correction — Mon 5 Oct 2026
The Rhine went below zero four days earlier than we said. The 4 October update said the Kaub gauge went below zero for the first time on 29 September. The gauge’s own readings show it first went negative on the evening of 25 September (−1 cm) and stood at −3 cm on 26 September (German waterways authority, PEGELONLINE; these are its unaudited raw readings). We carried the date from our 1 October briefing, and when we checked the gauge we read only the readings from 29 September onward. The date is corrected in the update below; the −6 cm low on 1 October stands. This note stays permanently.
Correction — Fri 5 Sep 2026
We reported that all crew were safe. Two seafarers had been killed. This page previously dated the twin tanker strikes near Khasab to 1 September and stated that all crew were reported safe. Both were wrong. The strikes occurred late on 31 August, and operator Bahri confirmed on 2 September that two Filipino seafarers aboard the Sidr were killed.
Earlier reporting said no casualties had been reported, and that is what we recorded. Bahri’s confirmation came on 2 September, before this page was written, and we did not re-check a casualty claim captured a day earlier. The wording is corrected above rather than removed, and this note stays permanently.
Update — Sun 4 Oct 2026
Europe’s suppliers are keeping their fuel at home, and governments are reaching for reserves instead. Chinese refiners have suspended oil-product exports beyond Hong Kong and Macau until further notice, four industry sources told Reuters; PetroChina cancelled most of its October gasoline and jet cargoes, Beijing has published no formal ban, and it is unclear whether approvals resume after Golden Week ends on 7 October. Russia’s ban on diesel exports by producers now runs to 31 October. President Trump said on 30 September that a US diesel export ban was still discussed daily, then ruled it out on 2 October once the G7 agreed its release (Transport Topics). On 2 October, after a videoconference hosted by President Macron, G7 members agreed to release up to 100 million barrels of diesel and crude over four months, with “a substantial diesel release within the first 20 days”; per-country shares were not published (NBC News). A release buys time. It does not replace the exporters that have stepped back.
Crude is moving again through Hormuz; products are not, and the ships are still being hit. Six vessels were struck between 28 September and 2 October — Al Funtas, Mersin Prosperity, Sinbad, Al Ruwais, the Kuwaiti VLCC Kazimah III, which caught fire on 1 October, and two more tankers on 2 October — with no responsibility established (Maritime Executive). Kpler put seven-day crude flows through the strait at 13.5 million b/d on 28 September, its pre-war level, with most of August’s crude moved by ship-to-ship transfer under US protection; refined products at 677,000 b/d against 3.6 million before the war (CNBC). Our own PortWatch series, a different measure that is not combined with Kpler’s, still shows visible transits near 3% of baseline — a floor, not total throughput. On the Red Sea side, the East–West pipeline had recovered to about 5.5 million b/d by 1–5 October (Argus; Kpler), against roughly 5.5 million before the attack; Aramco’s October European term allocations were set at zero in mid-September and no report we have seen says they are restored. Iran received the US response through Qatar on 29 September; there is no ceasefire.
The barrel also has to get inland. The Rhine at Kaub went below zero for the first time on the evening of 25 September and reached −6 cm on 1 October; by the afternoon of 4 October it had recovered to 9 cm (German waterways authority, PEGELONLINE), still far below the previous record low of 25 cm set in 2018. Barges past Kaub were already loading about a tenth of normal in mid-September. A cargo that reaches Rotterdam can still fail to reach the Upper Rhine — and ARA stocks can rise while inland depots run down.
What the price is and is not saying. December Brent, the front month since a contract roll on 1 October, settled at $102.25 on 2 October, effectively flat on the day. November expired on 30 September at about $103.50, so any front-month comparison across those two days compares two contracts, not a fall. No physical diesel shortage in Europe is verified. France’s forecourt gaps narrowed to about 14% of stations short of at least one fuel on 28 September, concentrated in a capped-price network, with strategic stocks reported full. The risk this month is not today’s tank. It is who will still sell Europe the next replacement cargo.
Update — Thu 24 Sep 2026
Europe’s biggest diesel supplier is now a political variable. On 22 September President Trump said he backs a US diesel export ban — “I’ve called for it. I’ve called for it within my people” — and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the administration was examining whether a full or partial ban would work. On 23 September Energy Secretary Chris Wright said “the blunt tool of banning diesel exports definitely doesn’t work” and that nobody was considering a flat ban, while Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said he was “not at all confident” a ban would lower the price. A White House official had told Politico on 21 September the administration was “not considering an export ban or export restrictions at this time”; by Wednesday Politico reported a 90-day ban in preparation and the White House denied it. No executive order exists, and no bill text. Senator Chuck Grassley’s temporary-ban proposal is live and splitting Senate Republicans — Majority Leader John Thune is open to it, oil-state Republicans call it a gimmick — but the House has already left for the midterm campaign and the Senate is expected to follow within the week, so executive action under IEEPA, which needs no vote, is the faster route. This is an argument, not a policy — and Europe is downstream of it.
Why that matters more than any single cargo. The United States supplied about 520,000 b/d of diesel to Europe in August on Vortexa’s reading — roughly half of the diesel Europe imports from outside the region — though that monthly average already conceals a decline: flows peaked near 540,000 b/d in the first half of August before falling to about 350,000 b/d in the second. It is also the flow rebuilding the hub: ARA independent gasoil stocks rose about 2% in September to 12.32 million barrels (Insights Global), still near a four-year low, with 41% of September’s gasoil imports arriving from the United States. India’s roughly 120,000 b/d via Bab el-Mandeb in August is the only like-for-like replacement flow on the table; South Korea’s ~129,000 b/d in September is jet, which competes for the same middle-distillate barrel but does not put diesel in a European tank. No combination of currently available suppliers replaces the American barrel.
What is not happening. Europe does not have a diesel shortage today, and nothing this week changed that. Stocks exist, cargoes are arriving, and France’s forecourt disruption is receding — government data on 24 September showed 89% of filling stations operating without difficulty, against 17% reporting a missing fuel on Monday, though the two measures are not identical so the improvement is directional rather than exact. Saudi Arabia restarted the East–West Pipeline on 22 September at a low rate, with 40% of capacity expected within days and full restoration in six to eight weeks; three of the eleven pumping stations serving the line were damaged, and Aramco’s October suspension to European term buyers still stands. Brent settled below $100 on 22 September. What changed this week is not the supply position. It is who controls it.
Update — Fri 5 Sep 2026
The ships were not just staying away. Two of them were hit, and two seafarers were killed. Late on 31 August two laden very large crude carriers were struck by projectiles minutes apart near Khasab, Oman — the Saudi-flagged Sidr and the Liberian-flagged Senegal Prosperity, the latter controlled by South Korea’s Sinokor Maritime. Each had loaded about 2 million barrels of Saudi crude at Juaymah, on Kpler data cited by Reuters. Operator Bahri confirmed on 2 September that two Filipino seafarers aboard the Sidr were killed; Philippine authorities separately reported 16 Filipino crew aboard, of whom 14 were unharmed. The Senegal Prosperity’s crew was evacuated and the vessel was reported dead in the water and listing. No spill or environmental impact has been verified; a laden, listing vessel is carried here as an environmental and salvage watch, not as an observed loss. This remains an escalation in disruption risk, not a verified physical supply loss — the distinction this page has held since June.
The mine-free declaration did not bring the traffic back. Kpler counted about five commodity vessels on 31 August — four entries, one exit — against a ten-day average near 14, which supersedes the ten-vessel reading for 26 August previously carried here. Counts for 1–3 September differ materially between trackers and are not merged; what the series agree on is that traffic stayed severely depressed after the lanes were declared clear. Observed counts remain a floor, not total throughput.
The price moved with the strikes. Brent settled at $90.49 on 31 August, then $94.65 on 1 September — a $4.16 session move, the largest in this run — followed by $95.63 and $95.52 through 3 September, six-week highs. Those are settled closes from this site’s own session feed; the 4 September session had not settled in both feeds at the time of writing, and an intraday quote is never presented as a close.
Then the United States started sinking tankers. On 5 September US forces struck three Iranian crude carriers after the IRGC fired ballistic missiles at a US aircraft carrier and a guided-missile destroyer; both evaded and CENTCOM reported no American personnel harmed. CENTCOM says the Downy, off Kharg Island, and the Stark 1, near Jask, were “permanently disabled”, and that the Kylo, also known as Noxen, was hit in the Gulf of Oman after its crew was directed to abandon ship. Adm. Brad Cooper: “If you shoot at two of our ships, we will impose an even higher economic cost — taking out three of yours,” adding that the US would if necessary “destroy Iran’s limited and exposed oil fleet”.
What that does and does not establish. Tanker capacity has been removed and oil-export logistics are being targeted directly. It is not a measured loss of crude: Kylo was unladen on CENTCOM’s own account, the cargo status of Downy and Stark 1 is not stated by any source we have read, and “permanently disabled” is CENTCOM’s wording, not a declared constructive total loss. Kharg Island’s terminal was not struck — the Downy was hit near it, which raises export-infrastructure risk without being damage to that infrastructure. This is also not the first such strike: a tanker-for-tanker policy was already reported in force from 1 September, so today is escalation and confirmation of it rather than its first use.
No flow effect is demonstrated yet, and no price reaction is in our figures. Every transit and loading series we could attribute predates these strikes, and trackers disagree with one another for the same days, so nothing is merged into a trend here. Crude futures were closed on Saturday: the $96.28 above is the settled 4 September close from this site’s own session feed and contains no reaction to the 5 September event. Oil-export logistics are now being deliberately targeted as an instrument of retaliation. That is a material escalation in disruption risk, but it is not yet evidence of an incremental physical crude-supply loss from the 5 September strikes.
The replacement map keeps lengthening. Russia’s ban on diesel, marine fuel and gasoil exports by producing companies runs to 30 September under the 29 August resolution — unchanged, and context rather than a new condition. Newly incorporated here rather than newly occurred: Europe began importing diesel from Mexico during August for the first time in about seven years, evidence that belongs to the period the 31 August summary already covered and was omitted from it.
Update — Mon 31 Aug 2026
The mines were declared cleared. The ships still did not return. Iran and Oman set out a temporary joint maritime corridor and joint mine-clearance project on 25 August, with Tehran conditioning implementation on US steps it has not published. On 27 August CENTCOM commander Admiral Brad Cooper declared the internationally recognised lanes free of Iranian sea mines. Kpler still counted 10 commodity vessels on Wednesday 26 August and 8 on Tuesday, against a ten-day average near 15 and a pre-war norm above 130 a day; tracking estimates put movement at roughly 5–15% of normal. A corridor that exists diplomatically is not one that operates commercially.
Then the shooting resumed. On 30 August US forces struck two Iranian launchers on Larak Island, saying Revolutionary Guard units were preparing to fire rockets carrying sea mines into the strait — an account not independently established. Iran fired missiles at US positions in Jordan; Jordan reported intercepting eight without damage. It was the first direct exchange in about a month. Brent returned above $90, closing at $90.32 at 22:02 GMT, up 2.52%. No further loss of exports has been verified: this is an escalation in disruption risk, not a new physical supply loss.
Why it matters for products. Middle Eastern diesel exports to Africa fell to their lowest in almost nine years in August while Asian shipments hit a four-and-a-half-year high; Russia extended its restriction on direct-producer diesel exports to 30 September. The replacement map now runs on longer voyages and fewer spare exporters — which is the condition any further disruption would arrive into. See The Diesel Is Still Arriving. The Safety Margin Isn’t.
Update — Thu 20 Aug 2026
Crude has round-tripped. The product market has not. Brent has risen five straight sessions — $87.07, $88.52, $90.87, $91.02, $91.62 and $93.92 at 09:20 UTC Thursday — its highest since late July. But the barrel is no longer where the pressure is. On 18 August our Atlantic-Basin proxy put the distillate-only crack at $95.81/bbl against a blended 3-2-1 of $62.52 and a gasoline-only crack of $45.87: the scarcity premium sits in middle distillates, not in crude. Europe is feeling it as an import problem — diesel imports fell to about 1.56 mb/d in July from 1.97 mb/d in January (Kpler via Reuters), while jet imports rose, and European diesel cargoes overtook jet in price this month for the first time in over a year (LSEG via Reuters).
A second signal points the same way. EIA’s Europe Brent Spot has closed above the ICE futures settle on all twelve overlapping sessions from 3 to 18 August, averaging $4.82/bbl and ranging $1.56 to $7.20. Physical spot Brent has been trading above the screen for a fortnight — buyers paying up for barrels they need now, not repricing expectations for months ahead. That is a different benchmark from Argus Dated and the two are not interchangeable, but the direction is unambiguous.
Hormuz has not recovered. Kpler recorded five commodity-vessel transits on Saturday 15 August and none on Sunday, against 31 the previous weekend and a pre-war norm above 130 a day. Three ADNOC vessels were attacked in under a week. Reuters cautions transits may pass undetected with transponders disabled, so treat these as a tracking-observed floor, not a throughput measurement.
And the workarounds are being taxed. Russia’s Novorossiysk halted crude loadings after a drone strike on 14 August and resumed on the 16th — about two days, not the 700,000 b/d of exposed capacity a headline might imply. Saudi Aramco’s September allocations meanwhile expose a gap between the quoted price and the delivered cost: the discount is calculated for Ras Tanura loading inside the Gulf, while buyers redirected to Yanbu or Sidi Kerir carry the transfer and rerouting cost themselves.
The through-line. A fall in Brent would help Europe. It would not guarantee an equivalent fall in diesel. The question is shifting from whether Europe can find enough oil to whether it can find enough usable fuel after that oil has been refined.
Earlier updates · 13 entries · 11 Aug to 16 Jul
Update — 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 · domestic supply
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
28.08mbpd
12 members · EIA, latest available
Russia
10.16mbpd
non-OPEC anchor
CENTCOM Advisory Snapshot
Middle East maritimeSource: U.S. Central Command via DVIDS. · Checked 11 Nov 23:43 UTC
Approved Analysis
Figures describe August 2026, 3 months behind the catalogue instant. Jet fuel carries the thinnest cover, with an unweighted EU mean of 49.4 days across 24 assessable figures of 27, rated critical. Petrol follows at 68.6 days across 26 assessable figures of 27, also rated critical. Diesel records the widest cover at 95.0 days across 26 assessable figures of 27, rated watch, and above the 90-day reference line. Across all fuels, 5 figures are withheld and excluded from all means and rankings.
For petrol, 19 of the 26 assessable figures sit below the reference line, with 17 rated critical. For diesel, 14 of 26 assessable figures fall below the reference. Jet fuel is most acute: 20 of 24 assessable figures are below the reference, and 20 are rated critical. Among countries with at least one assessable fuel, 23 of 26 carry at least one critical-banded figure. Poland ranks among the most exposed, with an unweighted country mean of 40.5 days across its assessable fuels.
- Reserve figures describe
- August 2026 (Eurostat observation month)
- Pump prices from the bulletin dated
- 9 November 2026 (EC reference date)
- Brent session
- 11 November 2026
Wording approved 6 November 2026, 08:13 UTC; figures last published 11 November 2026, 23:46 UTC. Approval is when the analysis was signed off, not the age of the figures above.
Sources: Days of cover computed from Eurostat nrg_stk_oilm and nrg_cb_oilm — see methodology · OilWatch 90-day reference line (not the Oil Stocks Directive test) — see methodology · Brent crude, front-month quote — see methodology · European Commission, Weekly Oil Bulletin
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 data23 of 26 countries with at least one assessable figure (2 with a withheld fuel, judged on the others; 1 with no assessable figure, not counted) are below the 90-day reference on at least one fuel. 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
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Yahoo Finance (BZF27.NYM)
Session: 2026-11-11
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.