Podium vs Print: “open for business” in the busiest week for attacks

The podium. In a video statement on Friday, Adm. Brad Cooper said about 400 merchant ships had sailed through the Strait of Hormuz in the previous seven days, and that US forces had helped Gulf partners ship more than 100 million barrels of crude in that period¹. That brought the crude moved with US help in recent months to more than 1.3 billion barrels, he said. “Let me be clear,” he added: the strait “remains open for business”¹.

The print. The UK Maritime Trade Operations agency counted at least 10 vessels attacked in or near the strait since the previous Sunday, a weekly high since the war began in February, and 23 attacks since the start of October, almost double the average². It also said it was “struggling to accurately report” the true number, because most ships now refuse to report attacks². The analytics firm Kpler said in a note on Friday that intensified attacks had cut Gulf crude flows to about 8.5 million barrels a day on a seven-day average last week, from more than 20 million the week before³.

The gap. Desk arithmetic: 100 million barrels in seven days is about 14.3 million barrels a day. That is well above Kpler’s 8.5 million, but the two figures come from different counters, with different definitions and slightly different weeks, so do not subtract one from the other. Read them together instead. Ships are moving, in large numbers, and they are moving under fire. Many now switch off their tracking systems to avoid detection, and still face attacks².

Verdict. Not a lie and not the whole truth. “Open” is a word about access. Price is a word about risk. A strait you can cross only with escorts and dark transponders is open the way a road with checkpoints is open: you get through, at a cost. That cost reaches you in delivered fuel prices long before it reaches a podium. It is also worth noticing what moved Brent this morning: a sanctions waiver in Washington, not a change at sea³.