Vitol chief says Middle East shipping squeeze could push oil to $200
Russell Hardy says 12 million barrels a day of crude and 2 million of products have left the region in the past week to ten days
Published
Map: The Gulf and Hormuz, marking Strait of Hormuz, Gulf of Oman
Russell Hardy, chief executive of Vitol, says the Middle East crude crisis has widened into a products crisis and now a shipping crisis. He says much of the region's oil now moves without AIS tracking, and that ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman have become highly inefficient.
Hardy says 12 million barrels a day of crude and 2 million barrels a day of products have left the Middle East in the past week to ten days. He says 14 million barrels a day of total exports are needed to keep prices under control and keep consumers supplied, and that Western oil inventories are limited enough that 10 million to 14 million barrels a day from the region is needed to stabilize the market. Without that volume, he says, prices could reach $200 a barrel.
The warning marks a shift from Hardy's comment on September 7, when he described 10 million barrels a day moving through the Strait of Hormuz as evidence that flows remained resilient. His new figures put total outflow from the region at 14 million barrels a day combined, and point to shipping logistics, gaps in AIS tracking and inefficient ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman as the binding constraint, rather than the strait itself being closed.
That distinction matters for anyone pricing oil risk. A logistics bottleneck that squeezes effective supply below the 10 million to 14 million barrels a day he says is needed is a different risk than an outright blockade, and the $200 figure is Hardy's own warning, not a base case.