{"id":436355,"date":"2026-08-17T09:09:27","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T02:09:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/bloomberg-says-dark-trade-oil-shuttles-are-the-reason-iran-war-hasnt-spiked-oil-prices-436355\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T09:09:27","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T02:09:27","slug":"bloomberg-says-dark-trade-oil-shuttles-are-the-reason-iran-war-hasnt-spiked-oil-prices","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/market-news\/bloomberg-says-dark-trade-oil-shuttles-are-the-reason-iran-war-hasnt-spiked-oil-prices-436355\/","title":{"rendered":"Bloomberg says dark trade oil shuttles are the reason Iran war hasn&#8217;t spiked oil prices"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\">The clandestine shuttle trade helps explain why Brent has held broadly in an $80 to $90 range through August rather than testing the $150 levels once feared at the war&#8217;s outset, effectively acting as an informal supply buffer the market has come to depend on without fully pricing the risk behind it. Any meaningful slowdown in these flows, whether from escalating attacks or insurers pulling back cover, would remove that buffer quickly and could reintroduce the kind of upside price risk markets assumed away months ago. The apparent build-up of idle Saudi tanker capacity off Oman also hints at a potential further supply cushion if Riyadh follows the UAE, Iraq, Qatar and Kuwait into the shuttle trade, a development worth watching for any signs it&#8217;s crystallising.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\">&#8212;<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\">This is via a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bloomberg.com\/news\/articles\/2026-08-16\/covert-mideast-oil-flows-are-keeping-global-prices-in-check\" rel=\"follow\">Bloomberg (gated)<\/a> piece. I&#8217;d be more pointing to oil reserve releases and the <a href=\"https:\/\/investinglive.com\/commodities\/china-s-stockpiles-are-masking-the-true-scale-of-the-hormuz-shock\/\" rel=\"follow\">role of China,<\/a> but here is Bloomberg&#8217;s argument for pondering.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\">\nMarkets have quietly been relying on a shadow shipping trade to keep oil prices in check, and few outside the industry seem to appreciate how much weight it&#8217;s carrying.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\">Summary:<\/p>\n<ul dir=\"ltr\" class=\"[li_&amp;]:mb-0 [li_&amp;]:mt-1 [li_&amp;]:gap-1 [&amp;:not(:last-child)_ul]:pb-1 [&amp;:not(:last-child)_ol]:pb-1 list-disc flex flex-col gap-1 pl-8 mb-3 print:block print:space-y-1\">\n<li class=\"font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2\">A covert oil shuttle trade through the Strait of Hormuz is helping keep global prices in check, transferring barrels onto tankers off the coast of Oman to avoid the riskiest stretch of the waterway.<\/li>\n<li class=\"font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2\">Volumes are running above the roughly 4 million barrels a day markets had estimated, though exact figures are difficult to track given vessels are deliberately obscuring their locations.<\/li>\n<li class=\"font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2\">US Energy Secretary Chris Wright said 9 million barrels a day crossed Hormuz in the prior week, nearly half of pre-war volumes of around 20 million barrels a day.<\/li>\n<li class=\"font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2\">The trade has helped keep Brent trading between $80 and $90 a barrel through much of August, far below the $150 some had feared at the war&#8217;s outset.<\/li>\n<li class=\"font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2\">The UAE&#8217;s Adnoc has sold around 135 million barrels via this route despite 23 of its vessels being attacked, resulting in one fatality and 20 injuries, while Iraq, Qatar and Kuwait have also shuttled cargoes out.<\/li>\n<li class=\"font-claude-response-body whitespace-normal break-words pl-2\">Saudi Arabia has so far avoided large-scale shuttling of its own crude but is showing early signs of preparing to join, with 16 supertankers positioned off Oman and more en route.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\">\nThere is a story the oil market has not been telling itself clearly enough this year: prices held together through a Middle East war not because the danger passed, but because a covert shipping trade absorbed it on the market&#8217;s behalf.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\">Since the Iran war broke out, producers across the Gulf have been quietly moving crude out of the Strait of Hormuz by transferring barrels onto tankers waiting off the coast of Oman, often with transponders switched off to avoid drawing attention. It is not a small operation. Volumes are running above the roughly 4 million barrels a day markets had assumed, according to people familiar with the shipments, and satellite data shows the number of vessels gathered off Oman has surged to around 150 from just 40 in January. US Energy Secretary Chris Wright&#8217;s disclosure last week that 9 million barrels a day crossed Hormuz, nearly half of pre-war volumes, should have been treated as a bigger story than it was.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\">This matters because the alternative counterfactual was genuinely alarming. Traders were bracing for oil near $150 a barrel when the conflict began. Instead, Brent has spent much of August boxed in between $80 and $90, a range that reflects real supply discipline rather than luck. Some credit is due to stockpile releases, pipeline workarounds and softer global demand. But the shuttle trade deserves recognition as a central pillar of that stability, one that has operated largely out of public view.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\">It has not come without cost. The UAE&#8217;s Adnoc alone has had 23 vessels attacked while transiting Hormuz, resulting in one death and 20 injuries among crew, even as it has pushed ahead with selling roughly 135 million barrels through the route. Iraq, Qatar and Kuwait have found similar, if smaller, outlets. Seafarers have died. Oil spills have appeared in satellite imagery with no clear origin, a quiet reminder of what clandestine trade looks like when something goes wrong. The people actually running this trade describe it plainly: this is a dark trade, and not every ship owner is willing to take the risk.<\/p>\n<p class=\"font-claude-response-body break-words whitespace-normal\" dir=\"ltr\">What should give markets pause is how fragile this arrangement really is. It depends on continued military tolerance for the risk, on insurers staying willing to underwrite it, and on producers absorbing losses that would be unthinkable in peacetime. Saudi Arabia&#8217;s apparent preparations to join the shuttle trade, with over a dozen supertankers now massing off Oman, suggest the practice is becoming more entrenched rather than winding down. That should be read less as reassurance and more as a sign of how normalized this workaround has become. Markets have priced in calm. The people keeping that calm intact are running a considerably higher risk than the oil price curve currently reflects.<\/p>\n<p>                            This article was written by Eamonn Sheridan at investinglive.com.<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The clandestine shuttle trade helps explain why Brent has held broadly in an $80 to $90 range through August rather than testing the $150 levels once feared at the war&#8217;s outset, effectively&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":216,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[86],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-436355","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-market-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436355","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/216"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=436355"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/436355\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=436355"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=436355"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.swingfish.trade\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=436355"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}