This post launched before complete (come back at the customary 8:00 AM EDT) and will be a bit skeletal because I am packing for a truly horrible trip, transit-wise, thanks to Iran-war-induced flight changes. I will have a >12 hour layover each way, making a normal 21 to 23.5 hour trip into >34 hours each way.
The normal wise course would be to wait in the hope that things will become less bad. But with vessel transits out of the Gulf now on what looks like complete lockdown, severe and widespread jet fuel shortages are baked in. I have to deal with a mess at Citibank which will wind up in small claims court if they continue to be unable to ‘splain >35 debits to my corporate account; no one recognizes the codes associated with them.
Worse, my account manager is unable to escalate at all, let alone to the one place that could provide an answer, which is the cash management department. They clearly can generate a report with the backup to the transactions on my account. But instead the manager and I spent over 4 hours on the phone with no progress. And an attempt to reach the cash management department led to me being put on hold for 50 minutes over only one of the said >35 mystery debits.
So if ANYONE has a lead (that means an actual person at the manager or supervisor level, not a general # which I already tried) into Citi’s cash management department (I am obviously a small business customer) I will be enormously in your debt.
That also means for the next 12 days, Nat will take over the Iran War beat. This is a heavy lift! Please be nice to him! I am very grateful that he is willing to take this on in addition to his regular duties.
Please also thank Conor and Haig who will be filling in most of my regular slots.
* * *It is enormously frustrating to see pervasive misreporting on the status of efforts of tankers and cargo ships to exit the Persian Gulf and proceed to their destinations. At least as of the time of publication, no vessel has gotten past the US naval forces sitting in the Sea of Oman and Arabian Sea, just beyond the Strait of Hormuz. Numerous outlets that should know better, including high profile YouTubers, normally reliable news sources (not just Janta Ka but even Aljazeera) and Substackers that make a show of sourcing1 are conflating an exit of the Strait of Hormuz with a successful challenge of the US blockade.
That is false. The US did make an epic show of jerkdom by sending two destroyers into the Strait of Hormuz while the US-Iran negotiations were underway. US military-connected commentators like Larry Wilkerson have confirmed that they turned tail after being challenged by Iran, which per Wilkerson included buzzing them with drones.
However, as CENTCOM itself made clear, the US blockade was never never never of the Strait of Hormuz proper but just beyond. And given how suddenly this measure was implemented, it makes perfect sense that unarmed commercial carriers are not going to risk being boarded and having their crews put in custody.
Please note that as of the time of first publication of this post, I have attempted to verify claims of particular vessels running the blockade (quite a few Twitterati are on the case). There is not a single case of any specifically-named, as in tracked, ship exiting the Strait of Hormuz an getting past the blockade, as opposed to merely a bit past the Strait of Hormuz proper, save for the one grey area case mentioned in a Lloyds List story below.
There is a fresh report on Bloomberg of a non-sanctioned carrier entering the Persian Gulf to go to Iraq. Note on the inbound passage it did go into Iran territorial waters. But that would be after getting past the US cordon. Will the US allow it to exit or deem that to have been a violation?
What has happened repeatedly is that ships have been departing the Strait of Hormuz and then halting or turning back before they get to the Indian Ocean (or the other transit route, the Gulf of Aden).
Note that sites and tweets that say they show successful transit are missing the point and misleading their auciences. They merely show a transit of the Strait of Hormuz (followed by a turn-around) or merely ships approaching the Strait of Hormuz.
From Lloyds List in Signs of scramble from Iran-linked ships amid US blockade:
Iran-linked vessels that appeared poised to test the limits of the US blockade on Tuesday looked to be reconsidering as the US Navy forced a series of U-turns and ships stopped mid-voyage.
While the US has offered limited details regarding its intended enforcement strategy, US Central Command said in a social media post on Tuesday that six vessels have complied with directions from its forces to “to turn around to re-enter an Iranian port on the Gulf of Oman”.
It was not immediately clear to which vessels Centcom was referring, but at least one shadow fleet* tanker, Rich Starry (IMO: 9773301), made a U-turn in the Gulf of Oman on Tuesday after transiting the Strait of Hormuz in the early hours of the day….
A draft of the notice to mariners circulated among maritime security sources indicated a “grace period” for “neutral” vessels if they depart Iranian ports before 1400 hrs UTC. However, no official confirmation has been given….
Another shadow fleet tanker that recently transited the Strait of Hormuz outbound and potentially toward the blockade, is the 35,775 dwt Elpis (IMO: 9212400).
The US-sanctioned vessel departed Bushehr, Iran on March 31, and transited the Strait of Hormuz after the US blockade entered into force. The vessel did not change its draught to indicate that it was laden when departing Bushehr, although that is not uncommon for shadow fleet tankers to not update their draught or update it late in their voyage.
Both Elpis, which is fraudulently flagged to Comoros, and the registered company that owns the vessel, Malaysian entity IMS, are already sanctioned by the US for previous Iran trades.
Having exited the strait on Monday, Elpis stopped around midnight near Kooh Mobarak, Iran, which is regularly used as an area for ship-to-ship transfers. It was not immediately clear whether the vessel was waiting to conduct an STS transfer or was stopped by US forces.
While the focus for US enforcement is likely to concentrate on tankers, at least one bulker — Christianna (IMO: 9596703) — headed through the strait from Iran after the blockade entered into force. The vessel, which is Greek-owned, left the Iranian port of Bandar Imam Khomeini before the end of the unconfirmed grace period…
The US military has said it would look to enforce its blockade — which covers any vessel that has come out of Iranian ports or Iranian coastal waters — in the Gulf of Oman and Arabian Sea, to the east of the strait.
Given the slapdash way that the Administration likes to do things, it is not clear to Lloyds and therefore not the commercial shipping community if the blockade is for vessels that depart from Iran ports or also includes ones, say from Iraq, that pay the Iran tolls or even pay not tolls but allow Iranian inspection of their carriers:
It was also not immediately clear whether the vessels transiting the Strait of Hormuz through the Iran-dictated lanes that traverse the Islamic Republic’s territorial waters would also be considered in violation of the blockade, as Centcom said it would apply to vessels departing or entering “Iranian ports and coastal waters”.
Now to Bloomberg in Iraq-Bound Tanker Sails Into Gulf After Second Attempt at Hormuz:
Iraq-bound supertanker Agios Fanourios I has sailed into the Persian Gulf through the Strait of Hormuz on its second attempt, making it the first crude carrier to head west since a US blockade on Iran’s ports came into force.
Traffic through the chokepoint remains extremely limited, with some ships aborting their journeys and retracing their routes, including the US-sanctioned Rich Starry.
Iran is considering a short-term pause on shipments, partly to avoid testing the blockade and to avoid scuppering potential peace talks, according to Bloomberg.
Note we discounted the earlier Bloomberg story, Iran Weighs Pausing Hormuz Shipping to Avoid Derailing Talks, due to lousy sourcing:
Iran is considering a short-term pause to shipments through the Strait of Hormuz to avoid testing a US blockade and scuppering a fresh round of peace talks, according to a person familiar with Tehran’s deliberations.
Mind you, it seems entirely reasonable for Iran to pause for it to confer with its key allies and also allow the ship masters to communicate with the ship owners and cargo buyers. But the spin here is of Iran fear of the US, which is questionable.
Keep in mind that an already bad baseline of disinformation appears to have gotten suddenly worse:
It feels like something shifted in the last 48 hours. Current events went from being nearly impossible to parse due to news slop and disinfo to completely impossible to parse due to news slop and disinfo
— Amerikanets 📉 (@ripplebrain) April 14, 2026
Do I think this blockade will hold? I doubt it. First, as even a Times of London radio broadcast mentioned early on, even if this strangulation were to succeed on a longer-term basis, it would not do damage to Iran all that quickly. By contrast, it will lead to a much faster compounding of the damage to the global economy.
In addition, Iran maintains it can get by without using its ports for export:
JUST IN: 🇮🇷 Iran says it has alternative trade routes through Russia, Central Asia, and China, warns US blockade will backfire.
— BRICS News (@BRICSinfo) April 14, 2026
This may be a stretch, but perhaps in addition to land deliveries, Iran can work out a creative credit system with Russia whereby Iran gets crude to Russia and then Russia delivers a similar amount to China from other parts of Russia. Admittedly there would be a difference in grades but perhaps not unsolvably large.
Second, the Houthis could stop transit via Bab-el-Mandib, which would increase the damage to the commerce and consumers and particularly harm the Saudis.
Third, the US did not try to stop a Russian naval ship bringing oil to Cuba. The US does not seem to have the stomach for a direct confrontation with a major power that has the ships to contest a blockade.
The parties most harmed by this blockade are China, India, and Pakistan. If I were China, I would be making a stink to the US as well as seeing if I could get India or Pakistan (ideally both) to join in naval escorts. Any sort of escort operation, whether solo or joint, won’t happen overnight.
In a very good talk, Colonel Macgregor recaps the sort of naval forces the US assembled when it put up a blockade and expected it to be challenged by an opposing military. As you will see, they were vastly larger than the ships that the US has deployed (or could deploy):
Again, it is hard to prove a negative but Trump’s barker patter was that negotiations were to resume in a few days, but I see nothing of the kind on Twitter, where you’d expect to see not just a breaking news story but also a lot of debate.
The “deal on” hype machine is now in high gear
*TRUMP SAYS IRAN TALKS COULD HAPPEN OVER NEXT TWO DAYS: NYP
If a deal opens the Strait and everything starts moving, these markets are correctly priced.
If no deal … it could get “interesting.”
— Jim Bianco (@biancoresearch) April 14, 2026
The lead story on the BBC live feed for the Iran war has Trump repeating his barker patter:
The text:
Donald Trump says US-Iran talks could restart in Pakistan “in the next two days” – Iran is yet to comment….
As we’ve reported, President Trump – speaking about the possibility of more US-Iran talks – said “something could be happening” in Islamabad over “the next two days”.
That came hours after a diplomatic source told Iran’s state news agency IRNA there was “no information” about further talks.
IRNA said messages had been exchanged between Tehran and Pakistan – which has been acting as a mediator – but there was nothing confirmed.
The source said Pakistan “remains committed to its mediation efforts” after previous US-Iran talks in Islamabad ended without agreement.
Iran has seemingly not commented on Trump’s latest comments. The two-week ceasefire was announced on 8 April – meaning it is due to expire next Wednesday on 22 April.
The US is attempting to ratchet up pressure by not renewing its 30-day waiver on trading with Iran:
The U.S. will let its 30-day Iranian oil waiver expire without renewal, two Trump administration officials told Reuters. The waiver, covering delivery, sale, and discharge of Iranian crude and petroleum products, ends at 12:01 AM ET on April 19, 2026. The move coincides with the… pic.twitter.com/yFw6OmuIUc
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) April 14, 2026
Erm, finance and emotion are not a happy mix:
Treasury is moving aggressively with Economic Fury, maintaining maximum pressure on Iran. Financial institutions should be on notice that the department is leveraging the full range of available tools and authorities and is prepared to deploy secondary sanctions against foreign…
— Treasury Department (@USTreasury) April 14, 2026
Iran does not seem cowed:
Iran is demanding compensation of up to nearly 300 billion dollars from Gulf states that housed American aircraft used to strike the country.
— WarMonitor🇺🇦🇬🇧 (@WarMonitor3) April 14, 2026
And to the economic front, markets are insanely elevated, even before getting to the terrible givens:
🚨The US stock market has never been this OVERVALUED:
The Buffett Indicator, which measures total corporate equities relative to GDP, rose to 232.6%, the highest level in history.
This is well above the 2000 Dot-Com Bubble peak of 162.6% and the 2021 market frenzy high of… pic.twitter.com/fNW913fVm2
— Global Markets Investor (@GlobalMktObserv) April 14, 2026
We are witnessing a historic short squeeze right now.
The S&P 500 has now added nearly +$6 TRILLION in market cap since March 30th.
In just 5 trading days, hedge fund short exposure to US ETFs has gone from the highest since May 2025 to lower than 97% of cases over the last 5…
— The Kobeissi Letter (@KobeissiLetter) April 14, 2026
More detail from indi.ca in The Persian Gulf Between Markets And Reality:
There is a statistical delta opening up in the Persian Gulf. A Bermuda Δ where oil presents and futures diverge, where public opinions and markets do not merge, where global prices do not converge, and where—as Gramsci said—“a great variety of morbid symptoms [emerge]”…
What, for example, is happening here? In an ongoing April Fool’s joke, if I want to buy a physical barrel of oil (10-30 days hence) it costs $132.74. Which is a lot, I actually have running bet with a friend on this price. However, Brent Futures (2+ months hence) are trading at $99.36. The futures market is betting with him, that prices will return to ‘normal’, whatever that is.
Here’s another way of looking at it, where you can see the delta rising.
What makes this delta so weird is that we know what oil supply in 2 months will look like, it’s oil production and shipments now. And these ships are stoppered out of Hormuz and on fire around the Gulf.
We also know what refined oil prices and supplies are now, in other parts of the world. As the FT reports, “Benchmark north-west European prices for jet fuel closed at $1,573 a tonne on Thursday, according to price reporting agency Argus Media, up from about $750 a tonne before the Iran war.” As the EU transport commissioner Apostolos Tzitzikostas said, “If the passage through the Strait of Hormuz does not resume in any significant and stable way within the next three weeks, systemic jet fuel shortage is set to become a reality for the EU.”
This has been the reality in Asia for a while, but I mention Europe because White people don’t seem to believe in Asia as something connected to them. If you look at jet fuel prices across the world, you can see that prices are already up about 150% (from last year) in Asia and the Middle East and about 125% in Africa and Europe. Only North America is still living in last year (prices are actually 2.4% less) but oil is a liquid market and prices will slosh around until settling. As William Gibson said, the future is already here, it’s just unevenly distributed…..
Futures are theoretically supposed to price this future in, but they’re living in the past and inverting basic supply and demand. There is less supply in the future but somehow lower prices because… magic? Trump tweets and the herd mentality moves in tandem….
Futures are “boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past,” even the Great Gatsby couldn’t escape that. Like boats in a whirlpool, you can think you’re making great progress in some linear direction when in fact you’re going in circles and down the tube. Any oil future becomes the present at some point, and then prices have to converge. As some oil dude on Twitter says, “If Dated Brent remains at $120-130/bbl leading into the expiration of the front-month ICE Brent futures contract (currently around $100/bbl), the futures contract must converge toward the physical price. The convergence is not optional; it is mathematically enforced by the exchange’s settlement rules and market arbitrage.”
The jaws of this oily delta can be prised open by market and media manipulation for the carnival barker to put his head in and shout, but at some point the delta will snap shut. All the green lights will become red as reality intrudes.
Theres more fine material in this must-read post, such as:
Now the Standard & Poor stock market index (SPX) is nearing record highs while the University of Michigan Consumer Sentiment Index (UMCSENT) has hit its greatest depression. Consumer sentiment is at the lowest level ever measured, in 70 years of this account. You can see the delta here.
As we have been pointing out since the onset of this war, the supply shock extends well beyond energy to food (via fertilizers), computer chips (via helium), all sorts of industrial production (via sulphuric acid), plastics (which affects tons of logistics, particularly of food) and medications (via petrochemical inputs). So the market derangement is even more bizarre given that.
And now we have:
The recognition that AI compute shortage is bigger than oil supply shortage is here. At least in the US, which singularly matters for global financial markets more than anywhere else. @benitoz great call!
— Steve Hou (@stevehou) April 14, 2026
Note this just showed up on Twitted, but I saw nothing of the kind on BBC or Bloomberg when I checked at a bit after wthis tweet time:
JUST IN: 🇺🇸🇮🇷 US and Iran agree “in principle” to extend ceasefire, AP reports.
— BRICS News (@BRICSinfo) April 15, 2026
Nor do I see anything like that on Aljazeera. However, this entry hit their wire in the last five minutes:
US to send ‘thousands of additional troops’ to Middle East
The US is sending thousands of additional troops into the Middle East in the coming days, according to a report by The Washington Post, which cited unnamed US officials.
Given my conflicting demands, I have to stop now. Again, be nice to Nat during my absence!
___
1 I am being nicer than I should be in not naming the author, but one source that I had regarded as reliable had as its lead item the claim of successful transits of the Strait of Hormuz, which is narrowly accurate, with the links to supposed sources either showing a vessel retreat or worse, not being on point.
