16 September 2026
Physical oil & gas
Mid-September 2026: Brent has printed above $100 as Hormuz flows, the Saudi East-West line and Red Sea traffic all carry risk. IEA: supply -5.7 mb/d this year, demand -2.5. The 2030 oil-peak thesis is a different conversation from this quarter’s tanker list.
Brent
$107.8
Security premium on the 2026 tape.
WTI
$103.2
US liquids still the non-OPEC swing.
Dubai
$105.4
The Asian sour marker. Hormuz cargo.
JKM LNG
$15.8
$/MMBtu. The Asian winter number.
Singapore gasoil
$24
$/bbl. The Asian diesel number. Distillate is the 2026 shortage.
USGC 3-2-1
$18
$/bbl. Gulf Coast cokers want Venezuelan heavy sour.
VLCC AG–China
$6.4
$/bbl. TD3C war-risk. Freight is a chokepoint tax.
Propane
$0.8
$/gal. Petchem feedstock. China’s PDH plants still pull.
Tape
Annual averages; 2026 is year-to-date. Crude in $/bbl, TTF and JKM in $/MMBtu — shape, not parity. Henry Hub stayed a domestic number while Europe and Asia repriced seaborne gas.
Chokepoints
~20% of seaborne oil · ~20% of LNG
IEA: more than 10 mb/d of Gulf output still shut in as of August. Gulf oil exports ~13 mb/d, nearly half their pre-war level. Insurance, waiting times and the risk premium remain elevated.
~5 mb/d Hormuz bypass
A drone strike in mid-September forced a shutdown of the main bypass. Saxo estimated ~4% of global supply at risk while storage fills.
Europe-Asia product & container flows
Houthi control of Mocha adds a second maritime risk on top of Hormuz. Product tankers are re-routing via the Cape.
~1.2 mb/d Venezuelan crude · 303 bn bbl reserves
A December 2025 tanker blockade preceded the January raid on Caracas. More than 500 kb/d now sails to the US Gulf. Title to 65 billion barrels sits in a 100-year concession.
China / Japan / Korea crude & LNG
The quiet chokepoint. East Asian importers remain one incident away from a second premium if Gulf barrels cannot sail east.
Mediterranean crude & products
Red Sea risk has already pulled barrels around the Cape. SUMED is a residual, not a relief valve, while Hormuz is tight.
LNG
Export capacity, bcm. US LNG already +27% in 2025. STEPS sees a surplus around 2030; Current Policies would absorb it. Gulf LNG is the 2026 wild card.
Corridors
United States → Europe & Asia
LNG + light tight oil
Largest LNG exporter; 21.1 mb/d liquids
Middle East → Asia
Crude + LNG
Still the seaborne oil spine — when Hormuz is open
Russia → China & India
Crude, products, pipeline gas
Eastward reroute after 2022; Europe structurally shorter
Canada → United States
WCS / synthetic crude
~4.1 mb/d. The largest single crude corridor on earth
Venezuela → United States
Heavy sour crude
>500 kb/d since the Jan 2026 intervention · ~40% of output
Brazil & Guyana → Europe & China
Atlantic deepwater crude
The new non-OPEC growth pair with the US and Canada
Qatar & Australia → Japan, Korea, China
Contract LNG
Pacific term market; JKM is the residual
Algeria & Norway → Europe
Pipeline gas + LNG
Europe’s residual non-US gas spine after 2022
IEA STEPS still has oil peaking near 102 mb/d around 2030. That medium-term surplus thesis is intact — and irrelevant this quarter. Hormuz, the East-West line and Red Sea risk have put a geopolitical floor under $100. IEA September: demand −2.5 mb/d in 2026 because the barrels cannot sail, not because the transition arrived.
OPEC effective spare versus July output printed near zero. Gulf shut-ins are not spare — they are barrels that cannot load. The Americas Quintet (US, Canada, Brazil, Guyana, Argentina) adds 1.4 mb/d this year. That is not a substitute for Basra.
US and Qatari trains sanctioned in 2023–25 start up into 2028–30. STEPS sees a surplus around 2030 that Current Policies would absorb. Europe’s TTF is no longer the 2022 panic print; Asia’s JKM is the one to watch if Gulf LNG stays tight.
Runs were nearly 5 mb/d below year-earlier levels in July. Middle East product exports and attacks on Russian refineries cut 3Q throughputs further. Diesel and jet are where a Hormuz war prints on the consumer. Cracks are a security premium too.
Country-to-country barrels and local crude tapes sit on Flows. The raid on Caracas, the tanker blockade and the Hormuz war sit on the delivery timeline. Country-level winners and losers of a $100 oil world are in the economies brief.