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Oil & Stocks Rise As Kharg Island Chaos Trumps Hormuz Re-Opening Signals

Tyler Durden's Photo
by Tyler Durden
Sunday, Mar 15, 2026 - 10:05 PM

Oil prices opened up significantly this evening as fears over the impact of US attacks on Iran's Kharg Island oil export hub trumped easing fears of the congestion in the Strait of Hormuz.

Brent topped $106 and WTI surged above $101...

Interesting, while US equity futures opened gap down lower, they have rushed higher, into the green (seemingly - for now - breaking the perfect negative correlation between oil and stocks)...

Treasury futures are steady with the US dollar modestly lower.

Goldman's Brian Garrett warns that we’re still only ~5% off all time highs, and just a reminder that:

1/ off ramps are not unilateral this time and

2/ there is more in the risk matrix than the middle east (credit, employment, etc) …

Garrett still thinks a short delta position is the best choice for managing your longs, with the upside is basically capped around all-time-highs (7k) and the downside is unbounded.

* * *

Shipping through the Strait of Hormuz has slowed to a crawl as ships are afraid Iran will target them either with rockets or mines while the prospect of US navy escorts remains in the distant future. Still, with most commercial traffic paralyzed, a handful of Iranian-linked vessels continue to navigate the waterway despite escalating security risks. 

According to Bloomberg's Tanker Tracker, an Iranian supertanker was spotted in the waters north of Hormuz on Sunday, with its destination listed as China, according to vessel-tracking data. A few more Iran-linked ships crossed through the chokepoint in the last 24 hours.

More importantly, according to Bloomberg the "successful passage of two Indian LPG tankers suggests that back-channel coordination may be allowing select vessels to bypass the current gridlock."

A VLCC, an LPG ship and a couple of bulk carriers, all linked to Iran, were among the vessels seen exiting the Gulf early Sunday.

An Iran-linked containership also entered the Persian Gulf during the past 24 hours.

Following comments by Iran FM Abbas Araghchi that the strait was only shut to US ships and those of its allies, more recent reports indicate that more crude oil tanker, including the Jag Laadki and Nanda Devi, had sailed en route to India from the UAE.

It successfully passed through the Strait of Hormuz (along with another tanker, Nanda Devi) and is now en route to India (e.g., positions reported in the Arabian Sea heading toward ports like Mundra, with expected arrival around March 16-21 depending on updates).  A total of three vessels are currently en route from the Gulf.

With vessels going dark in high-risk waters, transit counts may appear lower initially and be revised higher once delayed data emerges.

Yet a "self-imposed" shipping blockade largely persisted after a US strike on military targets on Kharg Island, which handles most of Iran’s crude exports, heightened risks in global oil supply chains. The US is also pressing allies to deploy warships to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

And while back-channeling between Iran and various Asian nations continues, perhaps the best news is that for the 3rd day in a row there have been no notable ship accidents in the gulf, with the last Attack notice by the UKMTO taking place on March 12. 

Perhaps the best assessment of the latest news comes from CNBC's Brian Sullivan who said that it is "Still very quiet in the Strait .. will that change next 24 hours?"

Meanwhile, as Bloomberg's Javier Blas notes, "while the Strait of Hormuz remains largely closed (other than a few tankers, notably from India), the Red Sea is witnessing the arrival of an oil tanker armada to the Saudi terminals there." The risk, of course, is that the military action spills over from the Gulf to the Red Sea and the Suez Canal is the next to be shuttered due to military intervention, although Egypt is unlikely to let that happen.

Despite Sunday's modest increase in Hormuz crossings, in its latest Daily Tracker note (available here to pro subs), Morgan Stanley has revised its transit estimates lower, writing that over the past 11 days we have reported daily estimates of crude, refined product and LNG tanker transits through the Strait of Hormuz based on Vortexa vessel-tracking data. In constructing these estimates we filtered for vessels recorded as passing the “Strait of Hormuz” waypoint within each 24-hour window.

"As the period progressed, however, vessel positioning data became increasingly noisy due to elevated levels of AIS disruption and spoofing. In several cases this produced apparent waypoint crossings that, upon closer inspection, did not correspond to an actual transit. We have therefore re-examined the full time series and conducted additional manual verification of individual vessel tracks. Based on this review, we are revising our earlier estimates: where we previously indicated roughly 2-6 transits per day, the more robust estimate is closer to 0-2 vessels per day over the past 11 days."

While this revision reflects the challenges of working with degraded positioning data, it does not materially alter the market implications. Prior to the disruption, roughly 25 oil and LNG tankers transited the Strait each day. Whether flows are down by ~85% or ~95%, the conclusion is the same: movements through Hormuz remain drastically curtailed, implying a very large supply shock to global oil markets. To add transparency, we will include an overview of confirmed crossings in the table below.

Below is Morgan Stanley's list of identified Hormuz transits:

More in the full MS note available to pro subs.

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