USO-linked WTI falls over 4% for the week
West Texas Intermediate, as tracked by United States Oil Fund, was at $83.12 Wednesday, down over 4% for the week, while Brent crude traded near $88.04, down 0.6% on the day.
Iranian oil loadings fell to 248,000 barrels a day in August. from commodity intelligence firm Kpler.
That’s a far cry from what Iran exported between March and April: 1.85 million barrels of crude a day.
At the time, non-Iranian crude leaving the Persian Gulf had fallen as low as 300,000 barrels a day.
Today, the traffic flipped.
Some 5.2 million barrels a day of non-Iranian crude left the Gulf in the week starting Aug.
3, including ship-to-ship transfers. “The renewed US blockade is making the status quo progressively more expensive for Tehran,” said Kpler analyst Homayoun Falakshahi.
Counting pipeline flows through Adnoc’s Fujairah terminal and Aramco’s East-West line, the figure rises to roughly 9 million.
Regional producers are shipping about 65% of what they moved before the war.
Iran’s neighbors have found the exit.
Iran has not.
The Cost Of Standing Still Inventories at Kharg Island have fallen 700,000 barrels this month to 19.3 million, despite almost no loading activity.
Kpler reads that as evidence Iran is shutting in production rather than letting oil pile up.
Tehran still holds more than 80 million barrels afloat outside the blockade zone.
Most of it is already committed to buyers.
Payment typically arrives at Chinese ports one to two months after discharge, leaving Iran with roughly five to six months of export revenue before receipts effectively stop.
The Pressure Extends Beyond Crude.
Petrochemical exports, Iran’s second-largest source of foreign earnings, have declined by 63% since early 2026.
Corn, soybean and wheat imports are running below their five-year range.
The United Arab Emirates moved on Aug.
19 to halt trade with Iran, closing another import channel.
Kpler frames Tehran’s position as a trilemmaL It can absorb the blockade, escalate to change the calculation for everyone else, or negotiate and accept terms it has spent months rejecting.
The firm does not see escalation as inevitable or imminent.
It does argue that the longer the blockade holds, the more attractive escalation becomes relative to doing nothing.
Waiting has a price too.
What The Market Is Actually Pricing Brent crude traded near $88.04 a barrel Wednesday, down 0.6% on the day.
West Texas Intermediate — as tracked by United States Oil Fund (NYSE: USO ) — was at $83.12, down over 4% for the week.
Oil prices have fallen following the latest package of U.S. sanctions against Iran.
The Treasury hit over 60 entities linked to Iran’s regime and threatened to extend secondary sanctions to any foreign entity doing business with Tehran.
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