Very cool seeing the wave of empty tankers heading to the US to pick up some desperately needed crude for Hormuz-starved markets.

https://x.com ^ | 4/10/26 | Rory Johnson

[Enterprise]

Very cool seeing the wave of empty tankers heading to the US to pick up some desperately needed crude for Hormuz-starved markets.

All the tankers on the map below are empty VLCCs (~2 million barrel capacity each) currently heading for the US Gulf Coast.

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TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government
KEYWORDS: epicfury; hormuz; hormuzwasopen; iran; oil; straitofhormuz; tankers

[Enterprise]

Great development! Trump playing his usual 5 D chess!

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Sounds like incentive for other countries to abandon the petrodollar.

[lee martell]

Now, THIS ...I like!!!

[Colorado Doug]

As much as I like it short term. I don’t want to see it for very long. We need to get the price of oil back down before the midterms. This will kill us.

[metmom]

Meanwhile, gas is over $4/gallon here in NH.

[Sequoyah101]

In a very seldom seen circumstance WTI has been trading at or above Brent. Now I know why.

Driving up the cost of US oil to supply others.

Just great.

[Enterprise]

I don’t disagree. For now, 60 tankers with a capacity of 2 million barrels of oil each means 120 million barrels of oil valued at about 12 billion dollars which Iran won’t collect. And maybe then, a lot more empty oil tankers will start heading for America instead of the Strait of Hormuz.

[drwoof]

Agreed.

[Sequoyah101]

Isn’t it great now that we have “excess” oil to sell to others?

I’ve now paid $5.00 a gallon for diesel, a new all time record for me for the last 25 years.

And how about those electric prices that were supposed to go down 50%? Haven’t seen that yet either. Or beef. These things take time I suppose?

I told a guy the other day not to spew crap and tell me it was shinola. Seems to apply to lots of things these days.

[Deaf Smith]

The greater the export of US crude oil means the lesser of our refined products exports.

Exports of refined products is greater value than export of crude.

[nathanbedford]

What exactly do you propose that will hold down the cost of consuming petroleum energy in the United States and at the same time, hold down the price of energy worldwide?

Do you propose withdrawing from the world petroleum market that fixes the prices around the world because oil is transported around the world, i.e., imposing an embargo on oil exports in an attempt to inflate supply and hold down domestic prices?

Such a policy might be illegal, it would certainly be subject to domestic and international court challenges and would actually be practically self-defeating and ultimately raise the price of oil energy consumption in the United States.

All this talk by President Trump that we don't need oil from the Gulf is absolute nonsense when it is designed to deceive the public into believing that American consumers at the gas pump will not pay more.

Reducing the supply of oil to the world by 20% inevitably makes oil more expensive in the United States. This, we should honestly acknowledge, is simply the cost of war against Iran.

[webheart]

It’s great. Just great.

[Vendome]

[jonrick46]

With this development, Iran’s effort to choke the Whore Moose has shot themselves in the foot.

[EnderWiggin1970]

Every tanker leaving the US with oil means higher prices here. So this is a trade-off, not a win.

[Paul R.]

Well, if we were a net importer of oil, we’d likely have shortages - which is happening in some countries.

[TheDon]

The IR cannot be allowed to hold the world hostage to ensure their continued reign of terror. This should have been done decades ago.

[Paul R.]

We limited oil exports for 40 years starting in 1975. The policy ended under... Obama.

Yes, there are disadvantages: In particular, the higher the oil price, the more energetic the efforts to find more supplies will be, within some limitations such as availability of skilled workers. The trick would be to flexibly adjust exports to maintain a politically tolerable price in the USA that was still attractive enough to encourage strong exploration, drilling new wells, investing in infrastructure, etc. Recent history indicates that around $70 / barrel would be fine in both regards.

Of course this is not “conservative”, in fact, it’s damn socialist, and if you oppose it on those grounds, I understand that. However, we have a couple potentially existential wars going on, one political, and one a real shooting war with likely nuclear shooting going on down the line should we lose this battle now: Rigid ideology in wartime can be fatal.

That said, should export limits or controls be put in place, they must have strict sunset and conditional limits.

In this context, President Trump saying “we don’t need gulf oil” is another one of his “levers” on the Euros and others. Some would call it a threat: If US oil and refined products’ exports are restricted, that worsens prices and availability (in the short term) for other countries. Certainly the idea that THEY should play a major role to secure their supply lines, or, perhaps, hire us out for the job, is not unreasonable. Reopening the Persian Gulf, Strait of Hormuz, and Sea of Oman, is no small task, and will likely cost us many billions of dollars and some US lives as well.

The problem is, though, I’m not sure if President Trump realizes just how feckless and helpless most of our NATO allies have become. This ties into a reply I still owe you on another thread. My lack of such has partially been due to time (the reply requires careful crafting and would be of some length, and I’ve been very busy), and... evidence that continues to smash-mouth my previous (more positive) opinion of said NATO countries defense capabilities, the UK being the biggest and most troubling example the last couple weeks, continues to come in. In short, I am referring to the UK’s inability to keep even ONE missile defense destroyer out of port (for repairs): That is just “killer” in the context of what’s needed to reopen shipping near Iran. Then you have this new situation where Putin basically gave the UK the finger and sailed 2 sanctioned vessels complete with a Russian frigate escort right through UK waters in the English Channel: The Brit’s response was to tail the Russians with an oiler(!), and threaten “we are watching you”. Not even a coastal defense boat was put out to monitor the Russians. Good Lord, where is Monty Python when you need ‘em?

Worst of all is that this is not a failure of just the current leadership: If social media, polls, etc., are any guide at all, the general population in Europe is as bad or worse. The problem is roots up, and has developed in that manner for a long time, I’m afraid. It’s quite to be expected, with 20/20 hindsight, I suppose.

You mentioned reforms in a previous post to me: How do you propose to reform the Western Euro population? :-(

I have serious doubts Trump realizes this: One of his biggest weaknesses is to look at everything in a transactional manner and “top down”. Kier Starmer (for example, here) is not the problem, he is merely a symptom.

[Paul R.]

To quote the late Senator Everitt Dirksen: “I do not disagree.”

[Chgogal]

“I have serious doubts Trump realizes this:”

Yup, you are so much smarter than he is. Sheesh!