[Today’s Iran war post yet again fired before finished. Please return at 8:00 AM EDT or refresh your browser then for the complete version]
Many commentators, particularly on YouTube, have been debating what is in and not in the yet-to-be published Memorandum of Understanding between Iran and the US, which is set to be signed on Friday, particularly since what some key players on each side are are saying does not converge.1 It may be, as some have suggested, that the text has still not been finalized and the two sides are still wrangling.
Many are pointing out that that what the US and Iran are saying wildly different things about what has been agreed. Given that Trump once said that Putin had agreed to go to a summit in Budapest when no such thing had or did happen, and that Hegseth continues to loudly maintain that the US is in full control of the Strait of Hormuz, and hundreds of US-approved but no Iranian vessels have gotten through, one could assume that a lot of wha the American side is saying is simply made up.
But see a fresh example of the sort of thing that confirms US slipperiness: the 14 points published by Mehr News included $300 billion for Iran reconstruction,
From Aljazeera’s live feed in the past hour:
Trump says US not investing any money in Iran
Continuing his remarks, Trump said the US would not be “investing any money in Iran”, calling such claims a “ridiculous” rumour.
We said in comments yesterday that the US will never pay $300 billion, ever. Trump can’t get the appropriation.
And the Iranians surely know that. Yet Vance has confirmed that a fund idea is in play, per The Hill in Vance: Iran ‘could have access to’ $300B reconstruction fund:
Vice President Vance on Monday said Iran could have access to a $300 billion reconstruction fund under its peace agreement with the U.S. if Tehran upholds its obligations outlined in the deal.
When asked about the fund by CBS News’s Ed O’Keefe during a Monday morning interview, Vance said, “Well, Ed, that’s the sort of thing they could have access to, funded by the Gulf Coast Coalition, so long as they honor their end of the obligation.”
The Gulf States are not parties to this agreement and have their own rebuilding to do, so the scheme sounds like quite a stretch, the son of various Ukraine reconstruction funds that never got off the ground.
We speculated yesterday in comments that the $300 billion is an Iran placeholder for damages. When Trump can’t deliver, then Iran’s counter is to say they will impose Strait of Hormuz fees until they have collected that much after their expenses.
Amusingly, the same article in The Hill reported:
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) shared concerns about the deal, noting that “Iran’s view of the agreement seems different than what the American negotiating team is claiming.”
But it is important to keep front and center how little this agreement amounts to. It reminds me of Japan, where in the 1980s, contracts were an alien idea. I had to protect clients from themselves when buying companies in the US, since they did not understand that only the contract mattered. In Japan, which has extremely well-understood business and social norms, what in the Anglosphere would be commemorated in legal agreements would instead be done on an informal basis that amounted to an understanding to keep wrangling as the arrangement moved forward.
In comments yesterday, former diplomat Aurelien (who has objected repeatedly to calling the US and Iran dealings “negotiations”) described what this MOU amounts to:
I’ve made the point before that a written document of some kind, and the way the situation works out on the ground, are two different things. There is no “deal” here, and it’s highly improbable that there ever will be an agreed legally binding document between the two countries. All this MoU does is to provide a list of largely unilateral political undertakings, out of which the US comes badly, but which can be waved around to persuade the credulous that something has been gained from the fighting.
The existence of such an MoU doesn’t and cannot change the realities on the ground. Iran has won militarily, and has the economic upper hand. Any further assault by the US and Israel on Iran would be less successful than the previous one, and the retaliation would be a lot more severe. The Iranians can close the Straits, directly or just by making threatening noises, any time they like. To that extent, even if the US ripped up the document next week and decided to attack Iran again, it wouldn’t make any difference. The game is effectively over, and there is nothing the US, Israel or the West in general can do to change that, no matter how fiercely they beat their chests.
Trump’s panicked response to Iran threatening to strike Israel again after Israel again bombed Beirut was a huge tell to Iran, that Trump on some level recognized how deep his hole is and at least realizes he needs to stop digging. As we have said and will unpack sooner, the driver is almost certainly his recognition of the still-in-play oil cliff. We’ll unpack soon why on current trajectories. end of July-early August looks like when it would kick in.
And keep in mind that getting a “deal” done does not keep the US from suffering an oil-cliff energy spike but seems too likely merely to delay when it arrives (we’ll provide more detail later in the post).
The world will not get back to an old normal level of Strait of Hormuz transits soon. Energy expert Kpler recently put as its best case scenario that the Strait of Hormuz would be at 45% of its former traffic levels in one year. To illustrate one of many impediments: US is insisting on demining.2 Even if Iran actually laid hardly any or even none, raising that specter delays when most vessel owners (ex perhaps those with ships still bottled up in the Gulf) will risk passage. Insurers will also act as enforcers.
So what a deal means is that energy shipments though the Strait of Hormuz will remain at a depressed but hopefully improving level for a very long time. That means that the energy deficit that has been met so far with inventories will continue, particularly since the deal hopium drop in energy prices will keep consumption at a higher level that it would be if diesel and gas prices were properly risk adjusted.
Ergo, oil inventory draws will continue but a slower pace. If Kpler’s forecasts are right, the US and other countries still face the energy cliff. And it may arrive before the midterms.
It has become imperative for Trump to get Strait of Hormuz volumes as high as possible as soon as possible. That gives Iran the whip hand if chooses to use it. In negotiations, who comes out best is not as much the function of who has the strongest position, but which side has the most will and skill. Historical examples abound, such as the so-called father of diplomacy, Talleyrand, succeeding in having France keep its pre-war borders after the Napoleonic wars.3
During the fake ceasefire, Iran would close the Strait of Hormuz quickly when the US behaved badly. If it keeps this level of disciplining up, what the text says is close to irrelevant.
One interview is far from dispositive, but Professor Marandi’s talk with CGTN suggests that Iran will be hard-nosed:
From Marandi via a lightly cleaned-up machine transcript:
But there’s a lot of skepticism of naturally about Trump and how erratic his behavior is and how unpredictable he is. He could wake up tomorrow and say something to wreck the deal.
And then of course there’s Netanyahu who is doing whatever he can to prevent the deal from being implemented. And if he does continue with the genocide in Lebanon and the slaughter of women and children as he’s been doing for for for many many weeks now, the Iranians will not implement their side of the bargain, meaning allowing ships linked to Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Emirates, Hat, and Bahrain, which were all involved in the war against Iran. It’ll refrain from allowing them to use the Strait of Hormuz foremost. So, Trump should be very careful to make sure that Netanyahu does abide by the ceasefire and exits Lebanon and ends the slaughter.
Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has made fresh statements consistent with Marandi’s understanding:
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi:
The end of the war will not be complete without the withdrawal of Israeli forces from the territories they occupied in Lebanon.
Any military attack by Israel on Lebanon and the continued occupation of Lebanese territories from now on, in… pic.twitter.com/4fu3wEy4Yi
— Open Source Intel (@Osint613) June 16, 2026
Similarly:
BIG: @amwajmedia has gotten hold of what informed political sources in Tehran describe as Para 1 of the Iran-US MoU.
For the first time, it EXPLICITLY commits Iran and the US PLUS "their allies in the current war" to immediately and permanently end military ops in Lebanon. This… pic.twitter.com/ALFZrrYDXn
— Mohammad Ali Shabani (@mashabani) June 16, 2026
Mind you, Israel has kept up its attacks but its deadline has not yet arrived. We pointed out in our post yesterday that Iran made the US ending its blockade and ceasing hostilities on all fronts as of Monday night a condition for signing on Friday. Iran ships have been allowed to go past the US blockade line, so that part so far is in place. As of yesterday, Israel was still attacking in Lebanon, see a post by Sam Husseini, Despite Iran Deal, Israel Continues Attacking Lebanon and Gaza and Reuters in Israeli strike kills one in south Lebanon, first deadly attack since U.S.-Iran deal announcement for confirmation.
Note that even though Iran made noises that and end to Israeli genocide in Gaza and ethnic cleansing were key demands, Iran did not include them in its “deal” demands, Jeremy Scahill explained on Breaking Points that UN involvement on both issues made it difficult for Iran to intervene on its own.
Alastair Crooke on Judge Napolitano provided a good explainer yesterday, focusing on Israel’s position:
Crooke stressed that the easy part in trying to end conflicts is agreeing to the de-escalation. The hard part is keeping the two sides from pulling it apart.
Crooke also described how Netanyahu’s polling has plunged, from 64% odds of winning in March to 32% now. He needs to keep the war in Lebanon going and cannot be seen as acquiescing to Trump. Israelis believe Hezbollah needs to be defeated and that Israel must have no restriction on its freedom of action.
That of course is a delusion given the extent of Israeli dependence on the US. We pointed out that the US could cut off intel, but that is a blunt instrument. Larry Johnson has explained on fresh YouTubes that Israel does not have KC 15 refueling jets. It has an older version and not in large numbers. Israel would also be denied the use of Prince Saud airbase. The result is that if the US simply denies Israel the use of US refuelers, it would be extremely limited in its ability to attack Iran. So the US could clip Israel’s wings, literally.
And the US appears to be signaling that that is just what it might do:
Pentagon prepares 'limited' withdrawal of refueling jets from Israel's Ben Gurion Airport: Reporthttps://t.co/R4RqPlJ3Rv
— The Cradle (@TheCradleMedia) June 16, 2026
To continue with the widespread concern with Israel’s keen interest in blowing up the deal, a new article from the Wall Street Journal surprisingly says Israel’s power in the Beltway has declined. But enough to make a difference here? From Israel Is Alarmed by Trump’s Deal With Iran
President Trump’s deal to wind down the war with Iran set off alarm bells in Israel, where top officials are wrestling with the consequences of easing the pressure on Tehran and the risks of opening a rift with the U.S. over the war with Hezbollah in Lebanon..
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said the U.S. was on the hook to end Israel’s attacks and aggression in Lebanon, state media reported.
Defying those claims, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz said the military would hold its so-called security zone in Lebanon indefinitely, saying it was needed to protect communities in northern Israel. He also said Israel would act independently to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons if necessary…..
It is a harsh comedown from Israeli hopes that the war would bring fundamental change to the region by toppling or crippling the Iranian regime and paving the way to diplomatic relations with more of Israel’s Arab regional counterparts under an American security umbrella, said Michael Oren, a former Israeli ambassador to Washington.
“If Iran receives sanctions relief of billions of dollars in assets, it will rebuild its military capabilities and proxies, and the blow to U.S. prestige in the region will be immense if not irreversible,” Oren said…..
Oren said Israel now has its back against the wall and can’t make concessions in the fight against Hezbollah even if it risks its relationship with Trump.
“It’s not a question of what Israel can do, but what it must do,” he said. “There’s almost no wiggle room there.”
While Israel would have lobbied Congress in the past to influence the White House, Israel no longer holds that kind of sway among lawmakers or the American public, said Oren.
And Israel is still defying Trump:
In the past few minutes there’s been sustained artillery bombardment targeting outskirts of Nabatieh city – southern #Lebanon – for people here the war didn’t end .. Israel they believe wants to occupy more areas
— Zeina Khodr (@ZeinakhodrAljaz) June 16, 2026
So will Iran clear its throat and say no signing if the US does not drop a hammer on Israel?
Now to the oil cliff. Robert Pape provided key information I must confess I had not seen elsewhere, and I have been trying to pay attention. You know that great US Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which had over 400 million barrels in it before Trump started to draw it down to contain US energy prices? The operating minimum is 270 to 300 million barrels! What kind of industry pork exercise was this, to stockpile oil in such a way that ginormous quantities were not usable?!?!
From Pape in a lightly-edited machine transcript:
I’m tracking the leverage according to the oil inventories, Scott, that’s the underlying reality that is giving Iran the leverage. And there’s two sources that I have relied on for this. Number one in the nearest term source, oil inventory experts that I’ve have known about but I had a chance to actually physically meet face to face in person for over four hours here at the University of Chicago in a meeting. They flew in from around the world. It wasn’t actually initially to meet with me it’s you know we have this pretty important economics department at the University of Chicago..
I got the invitation and and and of course the Iran war was the centerpiece, you can imagine, right?..
And so I learned a tremendous amount. And so in the short term, what’s happening is I [got a] more solid understanding of exactly where the bottoms are in the oil inventories. Now this is available online. You can find stuff, but it’s different when you’re actually face to face and you can really interrogate.
So the bottom line is that uh the the floors on our strategic reserves and this is true of other countries as well is the floor is higher and harder than is typically communicated.
So we started the war with just under the US strategic reserve uh under about 400 million barrels of oil in February 28th. Uh we’re now at 348 and we’re drawing down eight a week.
That’s the million barrels a week we’re drawing down. The floor though is not zero and it’s not 150. It’s somewhere between 270 and 300….
Now, what happens when you get to that level, Scott, is these caverns where we keep the oil, and this is because this is just how oil is kept, are salt….what happens is the cave walls, the walls start to collapse.
And that is the physical operational when they say the operational minimums, that’s what they’re talking about. Now there is a little bit of wiggle room. So it’s this debate between 270 and 300 [million barrels]…
We’ve already had some supply uh I’m sorry, demand destruction.
It’s not very much, but it’s enough to create a real tight balance between supply and demand.So, as new oil uh comes on the market over the next couple months, and it’s going to take a couple months for new oil to come on the market here uh for as as a lot of people will already know, pumps open, ships getting filled, ships transiting over the water.
So ships going to refinery will take will take somewhere between 30 and 60 days to even start happening. But during that time you’ll have to still draw down the inventory. So that inventory draws will still keep going down because we won’t have the new oil coming in for 30 to 60 days.
Now even then we won’t have enough oil to fill up the inventory or the cushion. So that means that that knife edge will be there for uh months probably about four to six months something like that uh even if everything goes perfectly no firing no shooting nothing and in that period of time that’s when even the smallest of disruptions by Iran uh here or a hurricane or any disruption so it’s not even just Iran any of those things will have a disordinate and a disproportionate effect in affecting the prices of oil, the price of gasoline, what we pay in our cars.
A new article in Politico states that the SPR level is actually 326 million barrels.
Pape points out that for the first 30 to 60 days of normalization, most of the new supply will re-fill the pipeline, as in tankers will have to go to the Gulf empty, get filled up, and then putter to their destinations. So there will not be much new supply. That means more inventory drawdowns.
Worse, the optimism about the “deal” looking on will tend to keep energy prices down and encourage consumption. So the 8 million a barrel gap in the US is likely to continue.
326 million barrels – a 300 million barrels minimum operating level is 3+ weeks of supply or, generously, 25 days. If the US can manage to go as low as 270 million barrels, that translates into at most 4 more weeks or at best a bit over 50 days.
So it looks as if even if everything goes right from the US perspective, odds favor the US hitting the oil cliff before the talks are over. And it’s not as if the new supply coming in would fill the gap between demand and supply, so the US looks set to hit it, albeit a bit later (a few weeks?). If energy was coming in on a somewhat diminished basis, the shock would not be as severe because the shortfall would not be as large, but it looks as if an energy price increase is baked in.
And that is before getting to how these conditions work to Iran’s advantage. Any new closure of the Strait of Hormuz, even if brief, increases the supply crunch.
Yesterday, we cited a Lloyd’s List article that explained why insurers and ship operators are very cautious about a reopening of the Strait. Most will need to be reasonably satisfied before they send vessels back to the Gulf. That is why (among other reasons) that Kpler expects it to take a very long time for traffic levels to increase, and to remain well below old normal levels until well into 2027.
Those concerns are going mainstream. From Politico in Trump is urging tankers to sail through Hormuz. Vessels aren’t so sure yet (hat tip Kevin W):
Trump’s declaration of a peace agreement with Iran on Sunday provided some breathing room for the administration as oil and gasoline prices fell. But analysts said conflicting reports — including from Vice President JD Vance — on whether Iran still will be able to charge oil tankers to travel through the Strait of Hormuz and whether the Strait was in fact open to any traffic has kept oil shipping companies wary of resuming traffic through the key waterway…
On Monday, senior administration officials speaking on background told reporters that 25 ships a day are now passing and that they expected to get to 50 ships a day “pretty quickly.”
Hormuz will be open toll-free for 60 days, and the expectation is that a full reopening will be part of a final agreement, the officials said. Reopening will only be possible once all of the mines are cleared, they added…
For now, the Joint Maritime Information Center, a service the U.S. Navy runs to issue security updates and risk assessments for commercial shipping, said Monday that the U.S. blockade of Iranian ports will remain in place until the ceasefire agreement is formally implemented on June 19. The advisory instructed seafarers and shipping companies not to attempt transits without authorization and maintained the maritime threat level in the Strait of Hormuz at “SEVERE.”…
Vessel traffic getting back to normal will take time, according to market intelligence firm Sparta Commodities, which said that “full Hormuz flows” within a week or two is optimistic. In a commentary Monday, Sparta said that even if politics stays on track this week ahead of the MOU signing, vessels that are still trapped on the wrong side of the strait “may find it slow going to exit.”
Another major consideration is the sweeping for mines, which takes time. Before the deal emerged this weekend, the International Energy Agency predicted “a minimum of two to three months” after mine clearing for steady exports to begin through the narrow passageway…
Maersk, a leading global shipping company, called the agreement a “welcome and positive development,” but said it has not altered its operations in the Persian Gulf…
The conflicting statements from the two sides will likely slow the progress of reopening the strait, which keeps upward pressure on oil and gasoline prices. Oil companies have warned that dwindling inventories of gasoline and crude oil could push prices higher even if the strait reopens.
Statements from the United States and Iran are “unclear” and don’t give enough specific information about factors like timing and safe routes, said Jakob Larsen, chief safety and security officer at BIMCO, a trade association for shipowners, operators and more….
INTERTANKO, the association representing independent tanker owners worldwide, told POLITICO that shipowners are hopeful but remain cautious as they assess the security situation and seek more information on potential mines in the region, how and when they will be cleared, and when it will be safe to resume transits through the Strait of Hormuz
So this is a long-winded way of saying that the energy leverage that Iran has is now about to come fast and hard into play if the Trump Administration does not play very very nicely. Aside from needing to surmount considerable internal opposition from Zionists and hawks, is the largely incompetent Trump Administration able to perform?
Done for today! See you tomorrow!
_____
1 I do not take at all seriously Trump claims, made at the G-7 so he could look like a Big Man, that the text was already signed electronically by both sides. The landing page of Tasnim News hours after the Trump assertion:
2 We pointed out earlier that the US has pretty much no ability to demine (the US has only littoral ships which are ill-suited to that role) and relies on Japan for that sort of capability. My impression is that it would take a couple of weeks for ships to arrive from East Asia. Will the US rely on Iran’s say so as to the caliber of any demining? Would insurer rely on that?
3 A friend, who looked and dressed like a rotund academic, is another example. He cheerily described himself as the Antichrist and said, “I rub their bellies and put them to sleep. Only years later do they realize what I did to them.”
‘Vance: Iran ‘could have access to’ $300B reconstruction fund’
I think that Vance has been spending far too much time with the Democrats. This headline is like when the Democrats say that they are fighting so that Americans can have ‘access’ to healthcare – and we know how that works out.
On the other hand and in contrast with ordinary American citizens, Iranians have several thousands ballistic missiles and finger on the trigger.
Drones! We need more drones! To vote with, that is.
As I listened to Vance I was imagining a huge cabal of US contracting firms hastily lining up to get chunks of this “reconstruction fund.”
I’m thinking that any US reconstruction funds will not be paid in cash, but “in kind” in the form of bridges, hospitals, preschools, and whatever other infrastructure the US saw fit to blow up during the war. One thing everyone learned in Iraq is that this kind of money is never audited and is literally a huge slush fund.
Hopefully the Iraqis are hip to this, and will ensure that reconstruction money is dispersed to their own infrastructure builders, keeping the money in the country in the form of wages, growing their domestic supply chain infrastructure, and allowing them to monitor the quality and appropriateness of what is being built.
If US cannot draw 300 million barrels in the “salt domes” that leaves less than 50 million remaining to draw. 6 or 7 weeks at rate since March 2026.
US can draw more Canadian or Gulf of Mexico heavy crude.
That puts other countries in a bind.
Tut! Tut! Tut! Surely you mean the Gulf of America, don’t you? The US may draw on oil from those regions but are they of the right grade for what their plants need?
Hah! I have heard it referred to as the “Bight of Cuba.”
Interestingly, what if Cuba began ‘interdicting’ “unfriendly” commercial vessels trying to leave the Other Gulf for the Atlantic? If America is going to attack Cuba anyway, what do they have to lose?
Stay safe, prepare.
No, different grades of oil are not even remotely fungible. I know you mean well but please don’t Make Shit Up. Refineries are tuned to operate with particular mixes of feed stocks. Heavy crude from Canada and Venezuela are literally tar and take a good bit of pre-processing before they can even be used.
60% of the oil refined in the US is our own light sweet crude. Tar sands are not a substitute.
THIS is an excellent introduction to oil refineries.
not only can one not just switch the refineries off and on(they are designed for constant flow), but one cannot just regigger them to handle other ‘kinds’ of oil…they are set up to handle a specific blend of petroleums.
and not all oil is the same.
one cannot make diesel from light sweet.
aint gon happen.
and thats what the frackers are scraping out of the permian basin and exporting, right now.
‘our’ refineries cant use it, except as part of the blend!..and a minor part, to boot!
all this talk about a new saudi arabia in the usa!!! is just stupid, and always has been.
it’ll take decades to re-jigger our stuff to handle the oil we still have(and remember, the permian peaked in the 70’s, we’re scraping the literal bottom of the barrel, there, at great cost)…and decades to rejigger our stuff to handle the thick, suflerous shit that canada or venezuela produces, or could produce. take decades…to deal with to make it even useable.
lol.
where are the engineers? wheres thje $$?
stupid from the get-go.
pons asinorum.
meanwhile, china has built up a backlog/inventory(remember those?) of cleantech…while jim cramers were yelling abt how they gon collapes any day due to overproduction…here they are now, selling clean energy to everyone in the world except us.
long term, strategic thought gives me a woody.
we in the usa!!! dont do that, anymore.
medhi hasan(sp-2) may detect some strategic ploy to take over the natgas, but i just dont see it, at all.
all the people that matter have been trained up into short term gains, uber alles.
there is no strategy, nor long term thinking, nor understandings of the broader world, as it actually exists.
this is very worrisome,lol.
our “leadership” and our “captains of industry”(such as is left), and our “masters” are divorced from reality, entirely…and mistake their spreadsheets for the world as it actually exists.
ive been a doomer for goin on 30 years….and this is even worse than i ever predicted.
wasnt medhi, is was that other prolific anti zionist guy the uk arrested at the airport a while ago.
did 8 hours with demon mother doctor run, today, so forgive me is i am out of sorts,lol.
got some staple groceries out of the deal, at least…but i am really frazzled.
US can draw more Canadian or Gulf of Mexico heavy crude.
This assumes that Canada or, I think, Venezuela have the capacity to ship more oil to the USA. I believe Canada is shipping much more oil to China currently, likely under fairly long-term contracts, and from early reports from US oil companies it is going to take a lot of time and money to really boost production.
I would not be sure there is a surplus to import.
Canada is still shipping gas to Ohio. Never saw prices so low while driving cross-country.
Oklahoma and Texas got close. But nothing beat Ohio.
Hard to imagine what this situation looks like six weeks from now. I really doubt Trump can let this one alone. Intellectually impossible for him, he holds long grudges.
Maybe not as kinetic as it was but I really don’t think he likes the L.
Agreed. Trump saw his ratings drop and knew he needed a deal before the midterms. He also knows he can string out the actual negotiations with Iran for a couple more months. However, once past the midterms it’s anybody’s guess what he and his Zionist backers may do.
I’m not sure Trump is the issue here so much as Israel. I really think Trump wants out of this and most people aren’t paying enough attention to understand what’s going on, let alone that this is a big L. Hell, he probably doesn’t even realize this is a L. Regardless, if he can pull this off, I think he can get out and proclaim “peace in our time” and most people will accept it at face value.
But, I don’t know what this looks like three days from now because I don’t trust Israel not to torpedo this. Nor do I believe Trumps’ alleged sternly worded phone calls to Bibi matter. The money men are coming to Trump and telling him it’s time to wrap things up (I see no evidence Trump cares about midterms, btw), and I think he’s responding to that. But Bibi has other ideas and there’s the real rub.
Has something indeed changed for the better? I won’t hold my breath.
https://iranwar.info/news/ben-gvir-s-miami-trip-collapses-over-u-s-visa-trouble-small-bureaucracy-or-big-diplomatic-signal
“Itamar Ben-Gvir reportedly canceled a family trip to Miami after visa complications. The paperwork story may be simple, but the political meaning is harder to ignore.”
*Sigh*
This is like the White House finally refusing to launder the suitcases full of dirty clothes Netanyahu and his wife bring when on official visits.
Ben-Gvir wanted to enter the US on a diplomatic basis, which = no visa.
The US said no because it was a personal visit.
Do they really do that? Entirely believable, and designed solely to humiliate and dominate.
100%
The issue is Israel, full stop.
The question is whether or not Trump cuts Israel loose
I think he might. Might take one more escalation round.
On another note, the electronic signing stuff is weird
Seems to me to tee up competing claims of ‘signed’ text that don’t match
I think Trump cares very much about the midterms. It was he that set off the redistricting wars, first in Texas, now in about 8 other states. He was so invested in the effort that when some Republican legislators in Indiana refused to gerrymander, he primaried most of them.
Now thanks to the Supreme Court ruling on the voting rights case, the Republicans may very well be in position to keep the House.
He realizes that a Democratic led House will start investigations on day one and he doesn’t want any of that in his last two years.
leased oil at Cushing
cohamizu@cohamizu1
11h
Translated from JapaneseMost people who think the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), which has been keeping oil prices in check, will last for several more months are overlooking the lease portion in their calculations. When factoring in the leased amount, my calculations show that the remaining days are already below 50. Cushing, the key storage and trading hub, will dip below the 20 mb level next week, starting to disrupt operations. Once that happens, the only options will be to rush into bids for delivery or close out positions, which means the massive short positions currently in play are highly likely to get squeezed. Incidentally, the final trading day for the July WTI crude oil futures contract is “three business days before the 25th of the month preceding the delivery month.” In other words, this leads to the following understanding: Contract expiration: June 22 (final settlement and clearing related) Final trading day: June 18 (Thursday) So, from June 15 (Monday) to June 16 (Tuesday), I believe sellers—including intervention forces—will tend to aggressively suppress prices (by continuing short selling). However, from June 17 (Wednesday) to June 18 (Thursday), with Cushing inventories reaching extreme lows, they’ll have no choice but to rush bids for delivery or close positions. As a result, right before the trading deadline, the following activities will intensify: Rushing to complete rolls (July contract → August contract). Reducing short positions as much as possible, given the extremely high delivery risk. Starting some forced buybacks with high likelihood to avoid physical delivery risk. The July contract’s open interest of 128,861 contracts is quite high for this time of year. Typically, this level a week before the contract month’s end is on the higher side, indicating a large volume of unsettled positions remaining. Having this much left over suggests that roll pressure and buyback pressure are likely to intensify
There are so many ways this “non-deal” (as Aurelien points out) can blow up. Israel going medieval on Lebanon is one obvious one. Non-performance by the non-agreement capable US is another.
Then there is Macron claiming he’s going to send the Charles De Gaulle aircraft carrier into the Strait as soon as the shooting stops. A desperate ploy to look like anything else but the Canard boiteux that he is. I’m pretty sure that blows up the whole thing. Iran will turn that ship into an offshore reef.
If this agreement goes through initially, I wonder if Trump will be tempted to send a US Navy task force through the Strait of Hormuz in a publicity stunt to say that the US Navy owns that Strait. A demonstration of how macho Trump is to his MAGA supporters. I would not put it past him.
To me, this looks like a low body count regime change operation emanating from Tehran. Many fewer missiles are flying, some more tankers are moving, Iran is making space for Trump to loosen the torniquet around the neck of the RoW, oil is flowing but at nothing near the volume to change the economic implications over the next year.
Bibi, now visibly approaching the end of his rope will no doubt “do something”, but nothing within his power removes the rope around his own neck. I’ve been wondering why Tehran didn’t redecorate Ben Gurion Airport with smoldering ash, but now see removing the USAF milch cow fleet as a lever they’ve left for Trump to yank on Bibi’s rope.
First Bibi, then Trump, then the US Congress. IIRC Yves quoted someone knowledgeable saying “wars of decolonization take 6 years”, and suspect this is why: leadership is just the point on the colonial spear, the binding and shaft have to be unmade as well.
Anybody who sends a carrier into the strait is an imbecile. That would be like sending it through the Panama canal with an artillery division parked along the sides.
Dien. Bien. Phu.
Yes, the French are fools to current events. He who does not learn from History is destined to repeat it.
Interesting with oil storage in salt caverns. Same in Germany but only with natural gas. If you withdraw to much you lose the storage i.e. the walls collapse. How much exactly you can withdraw without ruining the storage site is more an art than an exact science.
The drop to $84.85 isn’t a structural reversal—it’s a massive bear trap.
Lockdown Jesus@HE4DEYES
Short Trap: Why the Friday oil crash is a textbook paper illusion. 1. The Tanks are Barely Operational EIA data shows Cushing stocks at 21.64M barrels, dropping by ~800k a week. The absolute operational bottom is 20M. Below that, pipeline pressure fails and tank roofs literally collapse. Mathematically, the hub hits technical failure in less than 2 weeks. 2. The Reopening is a Supply Chain Mirage. Even if diplomatic talks go perfectly, you can’t teleport oil. Reopening Hormuz means mine-sweeping and re-insuring stranded tankers. More importantly: transit time around Africa to Europe/US takes 35 to 40+ days. Global refiners cannot stop buying US exports yet; they have a 5-week physical gap to survive. The drain on US tanks isn’t stopping. 3. Squeezing the Balloon: US midstream companies are already panic-shifting pipeline flows from Texas export docks north to save Cushing. But it’s a zero-sum game. You don’t create new oil by changing its GPS destination. Fixing Oklahoma just means starving the Gulf Coast. The entire system has zero margin for error. 4. The June 22 Meat Grinder: The NYMEX July WTI contract expires on Monday, June 22. If you are short a futures contract at expiration, you legally have to deliver physical crude to Cushing. But guess what? There are practically no physical barrels available to buy in Oklahoma. 5. The Setup: Bears have piled into
shorts thinking the geopolitical risk premium just evaporated. But when the next EIA data drops and shows Cushing is still a ghost town because physical ocean transit takes a month, those paper shorts are trapped. They will be forced into involuntary, broker-executed market orders to cover their paper before the June 22 deadline. The Verdict: The drop to $84.85 isn’t a structural reversal—it’s a massive bear trap. Physical logistics can’t move as fast as a news ticker. Expect a violent, forced short squeeze pushing paper WTI back toward $105–$115 over the next 10 days as paper liabilities collide with an empty physical bucket.
It’s now $76.21 for TWI July contract. I’ve seen estimates for 20M to 18M for Cushing tank bottom, and its been to 20M before. Its also unclear when exactly the SPR hits bottom, all these statements are all estimates because we’ve never been there before, and Pape, if he is correct, has 30M barrel variance in his estimate. You may be entirely correct, but it may be that things muddle through while supply gets back on line. Of course, there are so many known unknowns and unknown unknowns with respect to the MOU and expectations of compliance that it may be several months before the Straights of Hormuz functionally re-opens, so the oil market may blow up again, but not necessarily June 22.
I did have a theory that Iran may be setting this up for Friday June 19 because if they refuse to sign or there is some drama it might blow everything up on Monday, June 22. After all, Trump isn’t the only one who can influence markets.
I might take a flyer on September calls…
Thank you, farmboy, for your updates!
The Israelis have a bit of a hide trying to spike this agreement. Their population is all in on America continuing this war on their behalf but for themselves? Not so much. Weeks ago they announced that no IDF forces would be deployed to actually fight Iranians, none of their ships have been deployed to this region to back up US Navy ships, and to add insult to injury, when they were under missile attack they let the US chew through their antimissile inventory and tried to keep theirs intact. If Israel is so adamant about fighting Iran then fine. The US can step back and let those two duke it out until the Israelis are about to go winchester on their antiair missiles and ask for a truce. make them understand at a street level that they lost this war.
An old pal there on the ground told me some of his Israli fellows are tired and annoyed that the war still goes on and want it to end – between those in the center getting hit by Iranian missiles and those in the North exposed to Hezbullah retaliations. He tends to point out that if they didn’t want such a war, they shouldn’t have voted for Netanayhu and his gang of psychos; now is a bit too late for buyers’ remorse, they got exactly what was expected from them.
So, a bit of a growing cognitive dissonance in the right electorate there.
“Let’s you and him fight!”
–proposed lyrics from Israeli national anthem.
I think it is important that Israeli Jews have been taught since birth that they are “God’s Chosen People” and the only “True Humans”.
In many cases this has been true for two or three generations of Israeli’s, it is embedded in the culture.
Telling people that what they, their parents and their grandparents have been taught is a lie will not be happily recieved.
“Sorry, dude, you are just another hairless ape” is not something many Israeli’s CAN hear without emotional distress and anger.
Plus, having to get used to living in Utah with their cousins from those other “Lost Tribes”…
“Lost Tribes” cage fight, White House lawn. Who’s in?
The Chapo episode I didn’t know I wanted
I don’t think that this description is factually correct. Sure, there are some Israeli Jews who do interpret their religion in this supremacist way, and their scriptures do give some pretexts for such attitudes, but these are a weird minority, many others do not interpret their tradition like this, and many others again are ‘secular’ or just not religious at all. The predominant type of supremacism among them actually seems to be a kind of racism and dehumanisation directed against Arabs and Muslims as alleged ‘savages’ and, basically, irrational animals that naturally crave Jewish blood. Conversely, they mostly like to identify with the ‘white’ West, or, even more broadly, with ‘the civilised world’ (they wouldn’t particularly object to, say, Japan). Hence their alliance with far-right and racist forces in the West and elsewhere. It’s not just manipulation, they themselves genuinely believe in this.
They are disappointed and offended by Western critics and anti-Zionists and see them as something like ‘race traitors’ that refuse to recognise them as a good, respectable fellow-‘bourgeois nation’. All they ever wanted was to be part of the colonialist, I mean civilised cool boys club, and yet some refuse to show solidarity with them as fellow-colonialists, I mean ‘civilised people’. It must be because of anti-Semitism!
So they don’t sincerely distinguish themselves as ‘God’s chosen people’ with respect to Westerners – if anything, they look up to the West and long to be accepted as part of it. It’s mostly a middle-class careerist, upstart mentality at the national level. This is a very common complex in many nations, especially those perceived as being somehow ‘at the border’. It’s especially pronounced in Eastern Europe.
That said, there have also been Zionists who have been laudably objective and have said that the Arab resistance is quite understandable, but that it’s a dog-eat-dog world and the Jewish people had to look out for its own interests, whatever that costs to others. Morality is irrelevant. To get a country of their own, they had to rob someone of theirs, so they did it. See e.g. Moshe Dayan’s eulogy for Ro’i Rothberg. A very dark and cynical worldview, but, again, quite secular: not a word about a ‘chosen people’ and such.
Wow you described South Korea really well
Except for the “…they wouldn’t particularly object to, say, Japan” bit… ;-)
…the US is insisting on demiming.
Just stick ’em inside that invisible glass box and call it good? ;-)
Thanks yet again for all your work in putting these dailys together for us, Yves!!!
I find that insistence from the USA about demining the Strait of Hormuz as a condition for naval traffic resuming a bit odd. After all, Iran organized a new path through the Strait that keeps close to the Iranian shoreline so that ships passing through can be inspected and pay the toll — and there is no reason why this route should have been mined.
So when I read:
“Hormuz will be open toll-free for 60 days, and the expectation is that a full reopening will be part of a final agreement, the officials said. Reopening will only be possible once all of the mines are cleared, they added…”
Could it be that “full reopening after clearing all mines” is a coded expression from the USA for “previous sea way through Hormuz passable again free of charge”, as a contrast to “not fully opened = alternative sea way with toll charges imposed by Iran”?
Then about assuming ships can transit the Hormut Strait again:
“insurers and ship operators are very cautious about a reopening of the Strait. Most will need to be reasonably satisfied before they send vessels back to the Gulf.”
There are plenty of tankers bottled up in the Persian Gulf. Assuming the fighting really stops for a while, those ships exiting, fully laden, and heading to Asia and Europe would ease somewhat the problem of oil supply. However, the important aspect is “send[ing] vessels back to the Gulf”. The operators may take the risk of letting their ships sail away, breathe a sigh of relief that it worked, and then await further developments, a lasting peace, and insurer’s guarantees.
If so, we could have oil supplies from the Persian Gulf following a curious curve:
1) The MoU comes into force.
2) Blocked tankers start exiting the Gulf; a low, but not insignificant flow of oil starts reaching the markets, everything looks promising (“X ships transited through the Strait today! Y tankers arrived in South Korea!”)
3) At some point, all tankers that were stationed in the Gulf have departed, but ship-owners are wary of sending them back and insurers of providing coverage.
4) To everybody’s astonishment, the flow of oil from the Persian Gulf suddenly stops flowing apparently without reason, despite the fact that the MoU is still in place and apparently working.
What then?
It’s passed my mind that US has an ulterior motive to capture the Strait itself and /or bring a new fleet into the Gulf immediately
I am not sure whether the US os logistically prepared to do either, and obviously both would fail
Somebody upstream mentioned the magic words in that scenario:
Dien Bien Phu.
Still, maybe they can put Admiral Custer in charge of the operation and call it “Little Bighorn II.”
We can never know about the days to come
But we think about them anyway
And I wonder if I’m really with you now
Or just chasin’ after another genocidal day
Anticipation of Zionist emancipation
Is makin’ me late
Is keepin’ me waitin’
And I tell you how uneasy it feels to be with you
And how far right your politics feel around me
But I, I rehearsed those words just late last night
When I was thinkin’ about how you’d go about forsaking ye
Anticipation of Zionist emancipation
Is makin’ me late
Is keepin’ me waitin’
And tomorrow we might not be together
I’m no prophet and who knows Donald’s ways?
So I’ll try and be Uncle Sugar right now
And stay right here ’cause these are the good old days
And stay right here ’cause these are the good old days
(These are the good old days)
(These are the good old days)
(These are the good old days)
(These are the good old days)
Anticipation, by Carly Simon
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BELWbkyOVPQ&list=RDBELWbkyOVPQ
While I do not doubt that the folks referenced above are corrects as relates to the SPR tank minimums, it feels naive to assume that 1) anyone wishing to explain the 270-300m/b failure threshhold to Trump would be allowed within earshot of him or 2) this information would prove persuasive to halt the drawdown. It may be true that below said minimum the dome walls collapse, but if that is gradual vs instantaneous and still allows for a further period of withdrawal to some fundamental bottom then a calculus comes into play, and I have not seen any evidence that the administration is sufficiently risk averse not to consider the loss of, say, one facility. All that to say, I would not assume that the obvious deterrent factors are obvious to the powers that be.
when the walls collapse you lose the ability to withdraw NOW and at any time in the future. So nope. Its like once an airgap gets into the pipeline, all the oil in the pipeline is stuck, NOW and at anytime in the future.
There are ways to get the pipeline inventory out (mainly pressurizing the line). Since that would take a long while and would render the pipeline system inoperative this would probably only be done if it was the apocalypse.
I should also point out that the 400+ m barrels commercial reserves number kicked around includes pipeline inventory, which is not normally available. Same with tank bottoms (about 15-20% of tank water volume).
I wasn’t suggesting otherwise, moreso hoping someone might weigh in on whether those walls collapse immediately below the minimum, or gradually. It may be the former, as I said I couldn’t find a reliable account. My argument was that if it starts an irreparable degradation of the walls while allowing further drawdown, the permanent loss of the site thereafter may not be a sufficient deterrent. I’m not sure which would be worse, in terms of the broader outcome & ripple effects.
Can someone explain why this is true that 300m is the minimum? I’ve heard 150m barrels as the operation minimum, and it makes way more sense from an investment perspective than 270m-300m.
From the investment perspective: it cost a lot of money to make storage for 727m barrels (max SPR size according to https://www.energy.gov/hgeo/opr/spr-quick-facts).
Did they really need to build something with a capacity of 727m and then waste 300m barrels to fill it just to begin stockpiling oil? How is that worth the effort? I’m skeptical that a storage system would be designed so that almost half the capacity needs to be filled just to keep the system working, and can’t be withdrawn.
Furthermore, Mike Sommers, CEO of the American Petroleum Reserve said that the operational minimum is 20% of capacity, or ~145m barrels. Source: https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/15/business/spr-lowest-since-1983
So are there multiple operational minimums, where different levels of withdrawal have different negative effects? Is Sommers wrong?
Trump spoke with lots of Oil Executives last week warning that the End Times were near if the Straights didn’t get re-opened soon, so I would imagine the Administration understands the structural problems in the oil markets, and that is probably driving the deal even over Israeli/Zionist objection. Plus a bad oil spike would almost certainly insure a major collapse in the valuation of American equities. . .
Didnt someone say there were no permanent friends or permanent enemies in politics ?
President Trump appears to have thrown his Great Friend, Benny Natty Yahoo under the bus – to improve his Mid-Term results… That Benny’s ratings have dropped from 64% to 32% may have factored in Donny’s decision…
…….
I was so looking forward to Iran bombing the $30 billion data center said to be in UAE, I
wonder if the possibility of Iran bombing it stirred The Tech Bros to put some pressure om
President trump to “make a deal” ?
You might be thinking about Henry John Temple, the third Viscount Palmerston, in a five-hour speech in Parliament in 1848:
…
The record of Parliament is here.
The next coupla days are going to be strange one. Both sides have digitally signed this agreement but you can be sure that there will be a lot of jostling as to what was actually in that agreement. I don’t think that Trump will try some random military attack now as he has found that they do not work against Iran. More to the point, this agreement gives him the off-ramp that he desperately needs to get out of the mess that Bibi got him into. If he tries a military solution gain, he will find himself back at square one but with fewer options to getting out. but if he can get a formalized agreement, then this clears the decks for the Midterms which he should be concentrating on already. And if he can pull it off, everybody will forget about Iran.
It will also be interesting to see whether the neocons scream bloody murder, demanding a role for Congress, or shut their stinking pieholes.
https://thehill.com/policy/defense/5926050-trump-iran-agreement-congress-approval/
Note that my read of that article in the Hill is that Taco may be lying again, and never sends anything to Congress. Or, because the MoU itself is non-binding, there is nothing for Congress to vote on other than a resolution of approval/disapproval that would also be non-binding.
In other words, Clown World.
Probably option number two as a MoU is not a legally binding contract or anything. But yeah, Clown World.
We may need a bigger clown car, as this is close to the midterms, and the Democrats will want to vote against anything giving Taco credit for the agreement, while the neo-cons, as well, would want to vote against it to show how bloodthirsty and hidebound they are to the entity. I can see AIPAC lobbying against it, too.
That makes Mike Johnson’s life even more miserable.
That is what I like about your comments, ChrisFromGA. You can always find a silver lining for any situation.
I heard that there is a Go Fun Me campaign for Mike Johnson…
Whistles that roll out like a long tongue when you blow into them, kazoos of all kinds, pointy hats, and elongated clown shoes are urgently required.
Well done, as usual.
Rev Kev: And if he can pull it off, everybody will forget about Iran.
No. Many inside the US will attempt to forget about Iran. Many in the UK tried to put Suez out of their minds in 1957.
This is a bigger failure than Suez. In 1957 the UK remained a global — if fading — industrial manufacturer, the imperial preference system still partially existed, the City was getting the Eurodollar system off the ground, and the UK had won its police actions and repressed colonial insurgencies in Malaya and Kenya (although it would soon decide that game hadn’t been worth the candle, especially given its crimes in Kenya).
What does the US have besides the global reserve currency?
Primarily, a lot of IP. Can it enforce the fees and licensing on that IP if other players start copying it and not paying the US? Not really in the long run.
Oh, and China will be metering its RE exports to the US.
That could affect — as in throttle — a lot more than US military capability going forward.
Us military power remains effective against most countries. Iran is a special case that prepared its defenses over several decades. Plus its geographic position is very favorable – not just the gulf but easy connection to Russia/China for assistance/supplies that they willingly provide because they see Iran as critical for their own survival. African and the americas are not so favorably located.
Otoh, cheap drones now exist along with fairly cheap missiles. Many countries might be taking note of what they would need to resist gunboat diplomacy. Too late for Venezuela and maybe Cuba, but I agree this loss is likely worse than suez. We might see more of the term ‘odious debt’ used as an excuse to walk away from western debt. Or maybe more debt to buy cheap drones.
I wonder if walking away from dollar debt significantly reduces the need for dollars.
In a couple of his podcasts with The Judge just after the USreal Sneak Attack on Iran on 28th February Alastair Crooke mentioned: at a meeting Benny Netanyahu had with Donny
Trump at Mar-a-Largo (31 December ?) Benny allegedly said ‘dont worry about the ‘nuclear program’. It’s the missile defense system Iran was building – an ‘Iron Dome’ – that needs to be destroyed, because once in place Israel could never again directly attack Iran without fear of retaliation.’ … Iran never ever had any intention to develop nuclear weapons, Donny and Benny both knew that… Stopping Iran’s program to develop nukes was always only ever a cover story, that made the attacks easier to sell to the masses…
Israel will have to return to what it does best – Make War by deception…
Your numbers and understanding of the spr is lacking.
Sit down and deeply interrogate your favorite AI on this for at least half an hour.
Yves is mosrly quoting Robert Pape. Please share other legitimate SPR information.
I’ll go with Robert Pape over some AI hallucinations based on a ten-year old reddit post.
@upstater at 9:59 am
Yves quoting Robert Pape: Indeed. Huge thanks to Yves for wading through all the information and misinformation for us. I had dismissed Mr. Pape following his quoting obviously false US propaganda re Iran and Russia. Looks like I should have been more patient. In my defence I could say I relied on Yves’ covering him for NC readers.
Oh? What did your favorite come up with?
What’s wrong with the numbers, they’re corroborated by experts from the Politico article. 🤷
No thanks on hallucinatory, stochastic parrots.
I think I’ll stick with our hostess’ work, done by a person I trust and can verify.
Ok …as you wish.
for your edification…
https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2026/06/how-and-why-ai-is-eroding-democracy-in-the-us.html
AI? This is snark, right?
You have an AI that was trained on oil storage and transport data? I’d like to know which one.
Somewhere, Marcel Marceau is looking very worried…
A mime is a horrible thing to waste…
Trump may be making a classic error in seeking peace with Iran
Assuming the Iranian regime will comply with a peace deal has historically been a mistake
https://forward.com/opinion/831842/iran-trump-israel/
Interesting to read the hawk view from Israel laid out so plainly.
I’m not really sure what would satisfy the author vis a vis Iran and Hezballah, plus the rest of the Shia world. If Israel really is just the size of NJ, exactly what pacification techniques are going to work here when you’re talking about an entire ethno-religious group comprising hundreds of millions of people?
Well, the article doesn’t assume that all Shia are forever bound to be committed to fighting Israel, and that’s one thing that it is right about, IMO. I don’t think that it is inherently inevitable for the Shia as a group to be more anti-Israel than the Sunnis. On the contrary – the Palestinians are Sunnis and Hamas is a Sunni group. I think that the issue is more one of political ideology than of religion – which is also how the article frames it. There are Shia Muslims that aren’t all that eager to oppose Israel and the West, just as there are Sunnis that aren’t. Any big religion has room for, well, ordinary people who mostly just want to get on with their lives. I wouldn’t idealise the Shia as born martyrs and resistance fighters one and all, as some commentators are prone to do.
But sure, ultimately Israel’s problem is that the Middle East turns out to be – surprise, surprise – full of Arabs and Muslims, and those have an odd tendency to consider the Palestinians to be human beings. In fact, there are also those pesky people known as ‘non-racists’ and ‘non-psychopaths’ all over the world who have the same strange idea. That’s a lot of people that stand in the way of Israel’s safety, but it’s working on the issue, as we can see.
All good points. I just really don’t understand what power Israel thinks it has over what’s now a proven powerhouse world power in Iran, or even what leverage the IDF has over hezballah, given how many times they’ve fought them with pointless results.
IDF/mossad, between this Iran war and Oct 7th, is looking like it’s only good for shooting civilians.
Of course one cannot exclude the possibility that the Shia are generally, culturally if you will, less inclined to sell out to colonizers and genociders for money than the Sunnis are.
Maybe, a shocking idea of course, the Shia side of Islam is just better at infusing people with actual morals.
Considering that for example there is no Shia equivalent to Al Quaeda or ISIS that might not be that far fetched.
Nor Sunni fatwa against atomic weapons.
I suppose it’s useful to see the warped views of the fanatical genocidaires.
From your source “For nearly half a century, many Iranians have lived under a system they neither created nor freely chose”. 1953 is not “nearly half a century”.
@ gk 11:09 am
Excellent point: the 1953 overthrow of the democratically elected Iranian government by the CIA/MI6 and installation of the brutal Shah who remained in power for 26 years. The article doesn’t mention this either. The article is revealing in how selective and virtually non-existent its arguments are. The author has no shame.
The system of 1953 was the holdover from the occupation of Iran during World War II and the preceding authoritarian era, with different institutions claiming incompatible powers. Mossadegh was just part of it, with his own role in government, vis a vis the shah, unclear. It was a constitutional mess that had to be a clarified one way or another. A competent politician would have brought clarity by asserting power for himself. Mossadegh had others clarify it for him, at his expense.
I think Mossadegh has wound up with an exaggerated reputation that he doesn’t deserve.
And the CIA?
The article is dishonest even in its subheading. It doesn’t actually argue that Iran will not uphold the peace deal. It argues that any peace that does not end in the elimination of the Islamic Republic system and the installation of a pro-Western, pro-Israel government in Iran is not satisfactory. In other words, that war must continue until the IRI is overthrown. Because, you see, otherwise Iran will continue to oppose Israel’s ethnic cleansing and the US’s God-given right to rule other nations – as if all nations were equal or something. And we can’t have that, can we.
@mega mike at 9:43 am
I read the article you linked to. I was expecting a list of specific points and failures by Iran to live up to agreements. But it didn’t have that at all. It was remarkably weak. In addition it made no mention, even to dismiss them, of the repeated attacks and sanctions by the US/Israel/the West on Iran over the last 47 years nor the current US/Israeli slaughter of civilians in Gaza/Lebanon.
Projections, which is what Hasbara’s been reduced to, seldom hold up to scrutiny.
(if you are serious and not sarcastic) That is all BS. The Mad Emperor is not “seeking peace”. And there will be no “deal”, Aurelien’s post yesterday as well as all the information provided here by Yves makes it clear.
If you are that ignorant of the history of US-Iran relations since 1980, I suggest you start doing some homework, and make an effort to read the post above, before you advocate for such garbage. (I retract this comment if you were being sarcastic)
This is all just more circus clown antics from a mentally ill emperor and his delusional court sycophants. It should be glaringly obvious by now.
Persians have thousands of years of verifiable history, some of them were indeed dynastic. They have not offensively attacked another country in over 200 years. There is currently a fatwa against 1st strikes as well as causing unnecessary civilian casualties.
Izzys and other zionists, OTOH, are lying when they open their mouths. They scream ‘I’m a victim’ as they murder, rape and commit genocide. They shout ‘nazi’ at others while one-upping the original evil. They are hapless wussies when it comes to a real fighting force and excel only at killing unarmed civilians.
So yeah, your article is hasbara.
Couldn’t be any rational reason for that, could there?
This is the West. Encircle, threaten, provoke, destabilize. And then point to any response as evidence of how shifty the regime is.
How many offers of peace have Israel made to their neighbors in over 75 years?
None. Can an Israeli explain that?
Did you mean to suggest the clasic error was assuming Israel could be negotiated with? Or that Israel wanted peace? If not, it’s sad to see that we’ve already reached the stage where we need to recruit better trolls in the comments…
Ironically, if Trump is able to negotiate this peace and succeed in bringing Iran into the modern era sans sanctions, it will completely revitalize the Western Asia. It will make him one of the most transformative presidents of the 21st century. Iran has mineral resources, a large population, technical capacity, an industrial base, and scientific strength. Their current GDP is not that far below Israel’s. When the sanctions are removed they could easily achieve multiples of Israeli economic dominance in the region.
Of course, if Trump does this, he will probably have to give something to Israel to calm them down. So it probably means those NDAAs that essentially make Israeli interests Pentagon priorities will be approved.
The entire ‘deal’ is disingenuous beyond words.
Iran knows, first and foremost, Israel is the main actor that needs to be involved in talks.
Iran knows Israel is not to be trusted. And if Israel is not a party, they have a pass to more aberrant abhorrent behaviors
Israel knows Iran is not to be trusted. Because!
Rinse and repeat. Anyone banking on anything beyond enmity older than the New Testament is really being silly. Especially Wall Street and “The Markets”
Nuttingyahoo and Trump are painted into corners… and cornered animals with Nukes are not to be taken lightly. Iran is a bit cornered its own self.
I catch myself wondering why I hope for no peace— what the hell is wrong with me- so much hate for Trump and Nuttingyahoo — it colors everything– and giving Iran a pass, because of the overt historic aggression of Israel and the US? I guess so….
Imagine world peace. Imagine whirled peas. It’s objectively a flawed notion as long as humans are humans.
Donald Trump Has Nothing to Show for His War With Iran
Interview with Andreas Krieg
After waging a destructive war at vast expense, Donald Trump has ended up in a weaker strategic position than when he started. His main achievement has been to battle-test Iran’s ability to shut down the Strait of Hormuz and disrupt the world economy.
https://jacobin.com/2026/06/trump-iran-ceasefire-memorandum-israel
The right-wing media is already trying to get the ball rolling on how much better this deal is than that awful JCPOA of Obama’s. Just because! (That’s despite this not even addressing all the nuclear issues, which don’t get negotiated until Round 2.)
The first stumbling block will be the documents signed saying the same thing in both English and Farsi, and not differing from what Iran has already said. Then we will have to deal with Israeli kinetic actions to derail the whole thing. Which should rebound triply upon them if there is any justice at all.
Iran tossed this out like bait in a shark tank to get the sharks biting each other.
It’s working.
And it won’t stop till regime change, only then will an imposed reality be accepted by a successor selected by catastrophe. After 47 years, why not?
Maybe trump and friends and family playing with mr.market’s head and allegedly making one killing after another isn’t such a great achievement, but what counts is whatever floats your boat, I guess, damn strait.
Given the various statements from Israel, the MoU sounds pretty much D.O.A.
The war will continue but at a reduced pace.
The US is agreement incapable, so the MoU won’t even be worth the paper it’s signed on. 🧻
Iran’s only guarantee is that is now controls the Strait and can shut it down at will.
Israel will continue its ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and wage a low intensity war with Hezbollah in Southern Lebanon.
The Empire in the meantime will work to weaken the Houthis in Yemen and of course Iran in more subtle ways. Rinse and repeat in a few months once the mid terms are over. The Empire will never admit defeat even if it signs a paper admitting to as much. 🧻
I’m not sure the war in Lebanon goes on much longer. I assume if israel continues after Friday’s Iran will refuse to open the gulf. That means the west will blame israel as the energy cliff arrives. 10/g gas in us will piss off a lot of reps and dems both, and even dems will find it harder to keep anti israel candidates from the ballots. Even if israel stops and the gulf opens they will find it harder to avoid starting anew because those in the north want that.
And as the world realizes the west has lost it might affect fence sitters to shift away from the west.
Imo israel will focus on Gaza/West Bank.the latter needs small arms and new leadership… I wonder if Jordan shifts it’s view going forward.
0745 PDT
Trump Says Syria Would Do Better at Taming Hezbollah Than Israel
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-16/trump-says-syria-would-do-better-at-taming-hezbollah-than-israel
The U.S. is using an Iranian smuggling tactic to sneak oil out of the Gulf, reports Reuters
https://www.yahoo.com/news/articles/exclusive-u-using-iranian-smuggling-083937582.html
World Zionist Organization removed from Canada’s West Bank sanctions draft before release: sources
https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/wzo-sanctions-israel-9.7234018
Canada eliminates human rights watchdog that oversees companies operating abroad
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jun/15/canada-eliminates-human-rights-watchdog-companies-abroad
300m barrels operational minimum? Way worse than my estimate of 200m barrels cavern bottom. As Yves has pointed out the ship has already hit the iceberg and we’re just waiting to see when we get wet.
I made the same mistake thinking that the Avenger class was retired in total and replaced by the Freedom/Independent class (the LCS) with minesweeping module installed. A friend showed me that the 7th fleet (Japan) still has four in service. Meaning that the US still has dedicated, as opposed to bolt on, minesweeping capability. It is, as written in the quote, not in the correct location and would take weeks to get to the strait.
Does that responsibility/poor planning/ ill coordination fall on Hegseth?
If it does than yes Hegseth needs to go or fall on his sword for Trump
Last I saw two Avenger class minesweeps had left Singapore heading west but that was quite a while ago.
0758 PDT
Trump ‘reaffirms’ pledge to send 5,000 troops to Poland
https://tvpworld.com/93823545/trump-tells-polands-nawrocki-5000-troop-pledge-still-stands
Iran says the US war deal requires Israel to withdraw from Lebanon
https://apnews.com/article/iran-us-war-israel-lebanon-oil-june-16-2026-d79458506c46e3f4a78aef0f9d8b9250
Belarus President Lukashenko labels Israel’s actions in Gaza “a Holocaust”, says “It was simply wiped off the face of the Earth”
https://www.ynetnews.com/article/b16xj00c11zx
Trump getting religion on the energy crisis makes more sense to me than Trump wanting to prevent a retaliatory strike on Israel for its last foray into Beirut.
0826 PDT
Canada Moves On From U.S. Amid Tension With President Donald Trump: Prime Minister Mark Carney Says ‘New World Order Will Be Built From Europe’
https://knewz.com/canada-move-from-us-amid-tension-with-president-donald-trump/
What a fool. This man has no eyes. His bribes must all be coming from Europe.
Trump has admitted defeat on Iran war after historic blunder
https://news.sky.com/story/trumps-iran-war-is-one-of-the-greatest-strategic-blunders-in-us-history-13554425
Trump eyes firing Pete Hegseth and CIA chief John Ratcliffe over Iran deal clash
https://www.themirror.com/news/breaking-trump-eyes-firing-pete-1889778
What a fool. This man has no eyes. His bribes must all be coming from Europe.
No, he sees clearly, but he is trying to maximize his very crappy negotiating position.
“there’s a king on a throne with his eyes torn out … there’s a blind man, looking for a shadow of doubt”
Sting, “King of Pain”
Built from Europe?? What is Carney smoking? Has Europe ever been more irrelevant on the world stage?
I **really** hate to defend the guy, but if you were in Carney’s place right now, what would you say instead?
I’m surprised that Iran has not made a high priority target of the KC-135 planes in the gulf. The Air Force had about 150 of them 6 months ago, I don’t know how many are left. They seem vulnerable since they are big, slow, un-stealthy, and fly missions that are necessarily close to Iran. And, they have become another one of the many things that the US can no longer fight a war without.
I’m sure Iranian war planners know a lot more about what they’re doing than I do. But I do wish they had a chat channel where we could ask them questions!
I believe they have been but a ton are at Ben Gurion, which is dual use, and Iran has not been targeting civilian airports (see Dubai as an example).
Anecdotal but, almost all of the KC-135s and KC-46s that I have seen on FlightRadar24 in that region originate from Ben Gurion. Plus at times there seems to be some form of localized location scrambling going on around Ben Gurion as the aircraft tracks jump around somewhat erratically when close to the airport. But it’s also easy for these aircraft to turn off ADS-B and “disappear” so it’s hard to definitively say what’s flying from where.
What happened to Currie’s analysis that the oil cliff is July 4th? Now that it’s less than a month off, other “experts” are now claiming it’s one month later. I was figuring that would happen, just like how something will change between now and July 16th to push the oil cliff to Labor Day, then to Halloween, then to Thanksgiving for sure, then to New Year’s as an absolute, 100% certainty.
In 2026, a Y2K-like nothing burger is spelled “o-i-l c-l-i-f-f.”
You ever get the feeling that this is all entirely fictional, disempowering fear fuel? From the oil cliff to climate change to pandemics, this is the site of “Everyone is gonna die from something that could have been prevented if only people had listened to us! Oh well, here are some adorable polar bears, take it away Rev Kev!”
1. The market believes that a deal will produce supply pronto, which will not happen.
2. We said Currie said around July 4, others said later July. Currie explained yesterday why absolutely no one is long and the reasons do not reflect fundamentals. We wil have that clip in our post today. And real world prices are not paper prices.
3. See farmboy on the bear trap.
4. Pape closely interrogated oil experts and Pape said their view is late July-early August. Chevron and Exxon execs have been saying earlier but there are a lot of variables in play.
5. Trump’s panic and capitulation to Iran sticking points says he feels time pressure. Where is that coming from if not the energy cliff?
‘The market believes that a deal will produce supply pronto’
The market also believes that oil is worth only $77 a barrel right now. The market is an idiot. Smart nations should be signing oil deals right now with that as a fixed price.
Headline for paywalled CNN post
US intel assesses Iran can shut down Strait of Hormuz at will from now on (CNN)
All I can say is LOL. That wasn’t the assessment prior to the start of overt hostilities?
Exactly.
CNN paywalled? Some BBC content is now also paywalled (in the US.) And people will willingly pay money to read this garbage?
So Trump’s new idea is to have ISIS guy in Syria take out Hezbollah for Israel? Every time I think I’ve heard the stupidest idea ever I’m shortly proven wrong.
Yeah, see, if we get Jolani–I mean Sharaa–to attack Lebanon (he’s a good-looking guy, a real man’s man), Iran won’t be able to say Israel’s doing it. They won’t even know. Because we’re smart. We’ve got the smartest people. No one’s ever seen anything like it.
Moon of Alabama addressed this very unworkable idea today. Many problems with it, including assuming Sunnis won’t sympathize with fellow Muslims and use their weapons against Israel.
Lots of obvious problems with this “plan”, as one commenter pointed out. If the IDF can’t defeat Hez, what makes the geniuses like Don think a rent-a-jihadi mob can? Isn’t this the same gang that couldn’t gain any territory in eastern Syria? Raqqa and the Euphrates region, where all the oil is.
Maybe Al-Jolani should stick to the kiddie pool. Hezbollah would likely send him back to Turkiye in a body bag.
I don’t see anywhere in the politico article (here: https://www.politico.com/news/2026/06/15/is-the-strait-open-00962226) where it says the SPR is at 326 barrels. The last paragraph seems the closest:
But I don’t see anything about the SPR level in that Politico article, and a text search shows ‘326’ isn’t in the article at all. Is there something I’m missing?
Sorry, my bad. I had an earlier version based on the EIA report as of June 5, showing 349 barrels, consistent with Pape. I have no idea where Politico got that # and I misread Politico in light of checking the EIA site (https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WCSSTUS1&f=W), as you can. Here is the screenshot:
Rolling that forward another week takes you to about 340 million barrels, which is what I had earlier worked up.
I am sorry for the error and will revise.
With regards to Pape stating that the limit is higher.
The reasoning is as follows.
We talk about the US SPR as a single entity that contains ~325 billion barrels of crude.
That isn’t the case, there are multiple caverns that are can be divided into storing heavy or light crude.
The US doesn’t have a shortage of light crude so those caverns aren’t being drawn down.
The SPR has ~140 million barrels of light crude stored.
That means there is ~185 million barrels of heavy left.
If you apply the total SPR minimum amount to keep the structural integrity of the caverns intact you end up with Pape’s lower limit of 3 weeks. If you remove the light crude cavern limits then you end up with Pape’s 7 weeks.
After that point they can still extract but it has to be at much lower rates to allow for a controlled collapse of the salt caverns.
Does this render the caves less useful for their intended strategic purpose?
Total physical volume of the caverns of the SPR is on order of (assuming Google Search [AI] gave me an accurate number) of a tenth of a cubic kilometer. That would be a huge amount of above ground storage. The less- or in-accessible fraction of the total capacity is, I infer, the price paid for the lower cost of below-ground storage.
The folly is in the prior draw-downs for the purpose of managing consumer sentiment. If we had gone into the present crisis with SPR above 600 MM bbl, things would look very different (at least from the petroleum supplies perspective; there would still be a poly-supply-chain crisis).
Yes. Once you get below the limit where the structural integrity of the caves isn’t guaranteed anymore you basically have to excavate new caverns.
As Samuel Conner said it is the tradeoff for less maintenance. Also the idea was that SPR would be less vulnerable to sabotage, attack, or natural disasters then a traditional tank farm if placed underground.
But even above ground facilities have a minimum storage level.
Cushing (world largest tank farm) in Oklahoma has a maximum capacity of ~90 million barrels. 15 million to 20 million of those barrels are needed to keep the pipelines filled and prevent tanks from emptying so far that the roofs of tanks stop supporting the walls.
Speaking of Cushing, it is the location in the US to take physical delivery of oil traded in future contracts. And they have started redirecting crude from other parts of the US there so that this months contracts can be fulfilled. Which means that there is a temporary supply shortage that is going to affect the areas where the crude is being withdrawn/not sent to. Then there will be a reversal once the contracts are completed.
I was curious about this one so I did some reading. The SPR was an on-the-cheap solution in 1975 designed for an operational lifespan of 25 years. It’s been operating for roughly double that time now, with some resulting challenges. This article from 10 years ago seemed like a good (if brief) summary of the issues:
https://www.aapg.org/news-and-media/explorer/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-the-strategic-petroleum-reserve/
1975 was just a few years before “planning” was redefined as communism.
Even half assed planning a half century ago is better than anything on offer now!
How do negotiations work with a functionally illiterate principal?
From what I’ve read, Trump doesn’t write but always dictates, and he doesn’t read but has folks present to him — given how much faster for a literate person to communicate by reading and writing, this indicates that he’s functionally illiterate.
So how does one drive a negotiate through agents when one is reduced to hearing the status from those agents without having direct access to the written material from your opponents/partners in the negotiations? Especially if your agents are perfectly aware of your disability?
I think you’d see what we’re seeing — a principal who is fully at the mercy of factions within their team.
Never underestimate the power of a oleaginous smirk combined with an unctuous smile on the populace at large, which is most of them.
If only unctuousness could refill the SPR!
He’s trying!!
According to Michael Wolff, DJT does carefully read the New York Times (I get the impression from MW’s description of DJT relationship with print media [DJT used to contact MW, posing as a “Mr Barron”, with suggestions for media coverage of DJT] that this is basically scanning for articles that reference himself; perhaps he does read these carefully).
If that’s right, it may not be that DJT is functionally illiterate so much as that he employs his reading faculty primarily to learn what is being written about himself. Intelligence briefing papers are boring because they are about the rest of the world. If they were primarily about himself, it may be that he would carefully read them.
Israel’s ‘Get-out-of-jail-free’ card (so they think) is going to be the false flag attacks “by Hezbollah” at targets in Israel or on Israeli-related targets. Hence, they will claim that their continued attacks in Lebanon are merely self-defense, which is justified because Hezbollah/Iran has violated the terms of the agreement. Words on paper are all meaningless: there is nothing new under the sun.
ISR appears to have reduced the number of airstrikes in Lebanon during the past 24 hours, compared to the previous 24 hours, according to SouthFront (a Russian military disinformation website, sez Wiki-poena), from 64 on the 15th to 24 on the 16th. I hope this is a trend….
https://www.southfront.press/military-situation-in-northern-palestine-on-june-16-2026-map-update/
https://www.southfront.press/military-situation-in-northern-palestine-on-june-15-2026-map-update/
Btw, I’ve been reading SouthFront from early in the Ukraine SMO (2022), and yes they have a pro-Russia and pro-axis of resistance slant, but seem to get their facts right more often than pro-western sources, and they often have the latest news and video clips, such as of Hezbollah attacks on IDF in Lebanon and northern Palestine.
Of course, FB wouldn’t let me post SouthFront links back then, and I don’t bother posting anything ‘controversial’ on FB these days after the censorship and threats I got from them during early years of the Pandemic.
OK, maybe NC moderator(s) don’t care, but there are reports that the MOU was signed virtually on the 15th:
https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/trump-vance-irans-parliament-speaker-signed-mou-2026-06-15/
Look, an MOU is not a financially binding contract, and signing it virtually or in person, means nothing. For example the Navy and TIDA (our local gummint) drafted an MOU to set the table for a finalized EDC-MOA. The MOA is binding as there are financial consequences for breach of the terms. Just sayin’.
I have before and repeatedly that I doubt this was executed. This is only a Trump-claim, duly repeated by Vance who has to fall in line. Not only is the NO evidence from the Iran side, the Iranians are affirmatively maintaining that the signing is Friday.
And as I present in gory detail in today’s post, to be released in a few hours, evidence in accumulating that the text is not agreed.
At best, Trump signed something all by himself with no Iran counterpart and then made noise. That would be like him.
And an MOU is not and never is binding, FFS. For starters, please tell me how it is enforced. Binding agreements have enforcement mechanisms. Making Shit Up is a violiation of our written site Policies.
Yves, you appear to have misread my comment. I said the MOA (not the MOU) could be binding, but that “an MOU is not a … binding contract”– so we are in agreement on that point– yet you falsely accused me of “Making Shit Up”, and have apparently banned me.
I think this is very unfair and ask that you reconsider.
And my point that the MOU was signed virtually on Monday the 15th turned out to be important, because the US blockade did end and Iran subsequently sailed five ships out of the Persian Gulf.
I am freeing this but you are still banned because you continue to Make Shit Up, or at best. continue to be careless about information integrity . And our site Policies state that all moderation decisions are final.
1. There is no MOA. No one has referred to an MOA. There is only an MOU. And I have been involved in business negotiations in the US and other countries my entire career, and a student of international negotiations since 2015. MOA is not a term I have ever encountered, so this looks to be your invention. We do not accept readers inventing concepts to support their position. “Definitive agreement” is the Anglopshere term for a final business agreement; in international relations, it is a treaty.
2. There was no virtual signing on Monday. The Iranians did not sign. Trump may have signed on his own which is meaningless.
As we explained, a draft MOU had a pre-condition that AS OF MONDAY NIGHT hostilities would cease and the blockade would end. That actually did NOT happen in strict terms, as Sal Mercogliano explained long form. CENTCOM issued a directive that the blockade had not ended and it was NOT letting any ships in. It did let some Iranian ships past its line in the Gulf of Oman (as in exit), but it could still intercept them east of India if it changed its mind.
In addition, there was no final draft to be signed as of Monday. The terms were still being negotiated, as confirmed by leaks to Bloomberg et al of the supposed MOU on Tuesday my time (late Monday) which was NOT the final language.
As I said, it may be that Iran had dropped its demand for $12 billion of frozen assets up front for these other concrete proofs of good faith before signing.
The linked Politico article doesn’t say that the SPR is at 326m barrels. The number ‘326’ is not in the article. It does say that commercial inventories are at 426m barrels.
The linked Poltico article also says this about the commercial inventories: “That put U.S. crude oil inventories at about 5 percent below the five-year average for that time of year, EIA said.”
Also, the DOE’s latest report as of Jun 12 says the SPR is at 340m barrels. Source: https://www.spr.doe.gov/dir/dir.html
Thanks. Came here to say the same. Also, the link to that article is broken.
As always, many thanks to our host for giving us a feast of information each day. However, some levity derived from that haste…
Sarc/Thank God. I had no idea the US was using tactical mimes in this theater. Who knows what destruction unsupervised clowns can do? How many invisible walls will they erect between us and peace?
Per my algorithm; Trump will do or say anything to keep the price of oil down. Unless this imaginary MOU is stated in clearly defined terms, it might as well not exist, i.e. Put it out there, the USA will do this, Iran will do this, etc. If Israel doesn’t vacate Lebanon, then Iran will either have to retailiate against incursions from Israel or just roll over. If Iran realiates against israel, is it even concievable that Trump won’t enter the fray. Otherwise Adelson will give Trump a finger wagging. and smack his fingers with a ruler. What do the bookmakers make on this MOU?
drove miss daisy(demon mother) for 8 hours today(got groceries as my fee), so i been outta pocket.
jst catching up.
This:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJjkK-T6nnk&list=PLR1VVi2S5xz9QbsiHLPxhI6qDJ57pGg7k&index=5
was excellent.
and in spite…real spitting spite…of the larry ellison/bari weiss smear attempts…i think Trita is one of the most sincere folks talking about all this stuff…and whatever city/area in Iran he comes from, whether individually(which i think is the case) or ancestrally, should put up a bronze statue of him in some corner of a park, somewheres.
he has been remarkable, throughout….and exceptionally evenhanded
Not voting for a statue yet, amfortas. Trita succeeds in sounding judicious, but I noticed him remarking that both Israel and Hezbollah had to be “reined in” — as if the aggressor and the resistance were equivalent. Does that mean he believes that Israel should keep the parts of Lebanon it has invaded but go no farther? That might qualify as a nice “balanced” view, as long as you leave out Israel’s historical encroachments, there and elsewhere.
in my reading of him, over time, he is sincere in his peacemaking efforts, and sometimes overlooks certain realities on the ground.
his fault is that he assumes rationality.
and i think that is totally on the iranian side, in this case, and absent from pretty much all other sides…at least until china weighs in
he also looks just like my older brother in law,lol
1532 PDT
US denied Israel’s request to view Iran deal prior to signing ceremony
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-899606
1730 PDT
Read the 14-Point Draft Memorandum Between the US and Iran
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-06-16/read-the-14-point-draft-memorandum-between-the-us-and-iran
US-Iran framework seen impacting Israel-Lebanon negotiations, diplomats tell ‘Post’
https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-899622
Trump signals swift return of sanctions on Russian oil as G7 refocuses on Ukraine
https://apnews.com/article/g7-iran-ukraine-trump-macron-zelenskyy-e7fad4eabaae8181f70fa5a0b9e499b2
Tehran can immediately sell oil upon signing US-Iran deal, US official says
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/us-iran-deal-allows-tehran-immediately-sell-oil-wsj-reports-2026-06-16/
Has anyone seen this data? It looks like China didn’t lose any oil through this process. The claim seem to be that there was demand destruction via their electrification work that they put in order. I would think it’s a game changer if True:
https://xcancel.com/NuryVittachi/status/2066729183292821714
The data is based on shipments from Kepler, which seem to be pretty reliable
JustDario
@DarioCpx
I have a strong gut feeling that, 2 weeks ago, Trump was informed about oil inventories approaching critically low levels, forcing the price to snap back to reality because soon there won’t be enough to fulfill all the demand.
Since then, he has done all he could to “reopen” the SoH, to the point he ended up accepting all “unacceptable” Iran’s requests that have NEVER changed since April
Now the US government is rushing to reopen the SoH, aiming to restore the traffic back to the pre-war state. This is something that, objectively, is impossible to achieve because of the mines in the water, Iran’s strong grip over it, the war damage that will take months to repair, and the shipping industry unwilling to venture within the strait till there is 110% certainty the conflict won’t escalate again.
As I write these words, the Israeli army is still in Lebanon and has no intention to leave it. Objectively speaking, this means there won’t be any official MoU signature between the US and Iran on Friday that starts the 60-day negotiation phase. Furthermore, Trump already said in a NYT interview on Monday that if he does not reach a satisfactory agreement with Iran, especially on the Uranium topic, he will resume the military campaign.
Yesterday, a friend told me, “The market isn’t trading based on reality; it is just betting the house on Trump”
So far this week, there has been no meaningful pickup of traffic in the SoH despite Trump’s rush to announce it was “fully reopened”
Buyers around the world are still sitting on the sidelines; winter restocking is even over a month late, and peak driving season is starting. India is already rationing fuel, and the same is starting to happen in Russia, in case you missed the news. Refining spreads remain close to the peak too, as a sign of how strong demand is.
This is the simple reality, and traders are sticking their heads deep in the sand to avoid seeing it betting on a Trump’s “miracle”, but the last time I checked miracles only exist in the Bible
months to recover-Jeff Currie
Mark
@Mark4XX
·20h
MONTHS TO RECOVER: THE COVID LESSON JEFF CURRIE SAYS APPLIES TO IRAN OIL
Jeff Currie, executive co-chairman at Abaxx Markets, just laid out why the potential Iran-US ceasefire will not bring quick relief to oil markets. The uncertainty and risk remain huge because physical players see no reason to change course. They are destocking instead, creating a powerful downward pressure on prices that the headlines completely miss.
THE CORE THESIS: UNCERTAINTY STAYS SKY HIGH
➡️ Getting to the ceasefire was extremely challenging.
➡️ Maintaining it is going to be even more challenging, which means the uncertainty remains quite high.
➡️ Physical players are not changing their behavior one bit in response to the headlines.
➡️ Major shipping companies like Maersk and Mitsui are keeping their vessels out of the Gulf.
THE 60 MILLION BARREL TRAP
➡️ Around 60 million barrels of oil remain trapped inside the Gulf right now.
➡️ Releasing that volume would cover roughly ten days of global inventory at current draw rates.
➡️ After the short-term flush, the longer-term supply solution is still missing.
➡️ “After that, you really have to question what is the long term solution here, and nobody right now has an answer for that,” Jeff Currie warned.
THE SLOW RETURN TO NORMAL FLOWS
➡️ Flows through the Strait of Hormuz will take months to return to normal.
➡️ Even with a perfect ceasefire signed on Friday, serious discussions about resuming normality would only start by the end of the year.
THE PRODUCTION REBUILD CHALLENGE
➡️ Saudi Arabia can restore output the quickest because they recycle their fields at high frequency.
➡️ Kuwait, Iraq, Bahrain, and Qatar face much longer timelines measured in months if not years.
➡️ The COVID precedent is clear: shutting in 10 million barrels per day took the US two to three years to fully recover.
THE DAMAGED INFRASTRUCTURE REALITY
➡️ Many wells were shut and damaged, not simply turned off.
➡️ Restoring pressure and redrilling damaged wells takes significant time and explains recent strength in driller stocks.
THE DE-STOCKING PHENOMENON
➡️ Oil prices are falling for real reasons tied to aggressive destocking by both financial and physical players.
➡️ Financial positions are collapsing as policy uncertainty spikes and value at risk drops to some of the lowest levels seen.
➡️ Physical players including German heating oil consumers are deliberately running down stocks.
➡️ They believe uncertainty will lead to lower prices tomorrow, so why buy today?
➡️ In the US, drivers are purchasing ten gallons less per fill-up at retailers like Walmart and Costco while waiting for cheaper fuel.
THE INVENTORY REPLENISHMENT GAP
➡️ A billion barrels or more of oil have already been lost from inventories and strategic reserves.
➡️ Replenishing them will take months, not days or weeks.
➡️ Tertiary inventories held by end consumers keep draining lower as everyone delays purchases.
THE FINANCIAL VERSUS PHYSICAL DIVIDE
➡️ Financial markets are treating the ceasefire as a done deal with rapid normalization ahead.
➡️ Physical market participants see a completely different picture of prolonged uncertainty and are acting on it now.
THE BOTTOM LINE
A signed ceasefire might flush some trapped oil in the coming weeks, but it does nothing to resolve the fundamental uncertainty or the massive inventory deficit built up over recent months.
This is the sound of physical oil markets refusing to celebrate while financial markets price in a victory that has not yet arrived.