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Straits of Hormuz

Iran Seizes Tankers in Strait of Hormuz

 

BREAKING - Iran's Republican Guard has reportedly captured 2 oil Tankers in the Strait of Hormuz this afternoon, one tanker being British and the other Liberian flagged.

News broke of the first  around 1:30pm EST, the second being just announced 3:15pm EST. 

So far the market is up but not sharply, but it's unclear that the impact of news of a second vessel has hit yet. The obvious fear with multiple seizures is that Iran plans to deliver on the perpetual threat of closing the Strait of Hormuz, although it is obviously entirely too soon to make any such prediction. 

CNN is live updating on the unfolding situation, you can follow those updates here:  CNN - Iran Seizes Tankers in Strait of Hormuz

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Refinery Explosion & Iran/US Escalations Push Prices Up

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Gasoline spiked this morning, after a refinery explosion shook Southern Philadelphia. At around 4am, a butane vat exploded at the East Coast's largest  refinery, causing large fires and prompting an shelter in place order for the surrounding areas. There are no injuries reported, and CNBC is reporting the flames were relatively controlled with the SIP order lifted around 7am. You can follow this story here: Massive explosion at biggest gas refinery in East Coast 

We won't know how long term an impact refinery issues will cause, but looming larger on the horizon is the US/Iran tensions hitting crisis point. The market has jumped substantially this week in response to the escalations.

In lieu of the deep dive really looking into the Iran/US issues would require, the following is a quick synopsis of what's been happening in the past weeks' escalations: 

Tensions have been simmering since last May, when Trump withdrew the United States from the so-called "Iran Nuclear Deal" reached with that country & President Obama that would have capped uranium enrichment for Iran at 3.67%.
  • Last week, as discussed, oil vessels were attacked in the Gulf of Oman.  The Trump Administration has placed the blame on Iran for the vessel attacks, although it is unconfirmed still at this moment in time. 
  • Monday, Iran announced that by the 27th, they would officially breach the caps on uranium enrichment set by the "Iran Nuclear Deal"  As mentioned, the Trump Admin withdrew from that deal in 2018, but it is important to remember that the other countries involved did not withdraw, the deal was supposedly still in effect between Iran & several other European nations.
  • In response to the announcement about uranium, President Trump announced he would be redirecting 1,000 troops to the Middle East.
  • Thursday, Iran shot down an unmanned US drone. Iran claimed the drone was within Iranian airspace, while the US argues their coordinates show the drone within International airspace near the Strait of Hormuz (there is about a 9 mile variance between the coordinates cited by Iran and those cited by the US)
  • Thursday night, President Trump ordered retaliatory strikes on Iran, but held off at the last minute. According to him, he called off the strike because the expected casualty rate would be higher than what he considered proportional to the attack by Tehran, so it is unclear whether a different type of retaliatory strikes will commence in the next several days. (This is still developing, follow live updates here: "Trump confirms he called off retaliatory strike against Iran in last minutes" 

We will continue to keep an eye on developing news and how it impacts the market.

If you have questions regarding current pricing, or want to learn about the options for fixed prices or prompts available in the face of volatility in the market, please don't hesitate to reach out. 

Stay tuned! 

 

 

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Markets Spike on Vessel Attacks near Strait of Hormuz

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So much for no major events on the horizon.. After yesterday's drop, where Crude closed out at a 5 month low, this morning the NYMEX was up sharply across the board on developing news of tanker attacks in the Gulf of Oman. 

The attack was reportedly on two tankers at 6:12 & 7:00 am this morning local time. Crews were evacuated, and thus far both vessels are still afloat, according to Fox news this morning. 

The area the vessels were hit in is close to the Strait of Hormuz, a critical passageway for oil in the Middle East, with approximately 20% of Global volume passing through the Strait. 

The market was up 4% this morning on the news, and we will have to wait and see what further impacts there are as the story develops. It is unclear how safely vessels are able to travel the Strait currently, and it is unclear who attacked the vessels (although some unsubstantiated claims from a group in Iran have surfaced).

Again, this is developing, so we don't yet know what exactly happened, or what the full impact may be. 

For a great explanation of this morning's market reaction, as well as continuing updates, follow this story on CNBC here:

Oil Jumps 4% on Reports of Tanker Attacks in the Gulf of Oman

 

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Late Rally pushed Futures higher ahead of the Close

Futures danced along the even mark most of the day with little news pushing the market for much of the session.  Greece is still trying to get a break on the 14.5 billion it owes creditors come mid March.  US Carriers have moved through the Straits of Hormuz with little in the way of disruptions.  A European refiner filed for bankruptcy, Petroplus, as margins disappeared.  Two of the most notable market moving stories were that the IMF revised down the world economic growth pointing to a slower than expected growth rate over the last five months.  Ahead of the close, the spendingpulse survey (a Mastercard service) pointed to higher gas demand last week.  How much credence is given to this survey has always been a debate, a weekend snow event in the northeast might have boosted sales on Friday.  Nonetheless, most will be looking at Wednesday's DOE report which is expected to show moderate builds across the board.  It looked like heat was on a pretty good downward slide until the last two sessions, which really doesn't make sense if you look at the 7 to 10 day outlook which has temperatures in the Northeast well above normal levels.  At the close Crude lost .63 to $98.95, RBOB rose .0271 to 2.8050 and HEAT added .0144 to $3.0242.heat map
RBOB CLOSE
                 CLOSE       CHANGE 
  
FEB    28050       +.0271
MAR   28105      +.0249
APR    29399      +.0161
MAY   29264      +.0118
JUN   28979      +.0091
JUL    28633      +.0081
HEAT CLOSE
          CLOSE    CHANGE
FEB     30242     +.0144
MAR    30151      +.0116
APR     29951      +.0073
MAY   29741      +.0051
JUN    29611     +.0022
JUL     29612      +.0000
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