Ras Tanura

There's like a chapter or a kind of small semi-chapter in the book where I talk about here are two really important places.

It's Ras Laffan and Ras Tanura, two places on the coast of Qatar and Saudi Arabia which produce most of the world's liquified natural gas and oil respectively uh there are no more important hubs than that and all of a sudden we're in this terrifying place in kind of february march where both of them were being attacked by kind of you know iranian drones both were basically taken out and so the whole experiment was terrifying that's before you get to the question of you know the the choke point itself the strata hummus and how much shipping was or wasn't able to get through there So there's an obvious terrifying thing, which is like, what does the world do without 20% of its oil? But then there's the kind of counter argument, which is always remember and never underestimate the extraordinary ingenuity of I call them the middlemen.

So people who exist in that space between where something kind of comes out of the ground or is manufactured and the end consumer.

And sometimes that's shipping companies.

Iran International has responded that the spokesman has a pattern of dismissing independent reporting as security threats.

In energy news, freight rates on very large crude carriers from Ras Tanura to India have risen four hundred and one percent since February, from eighty-five cents to four dollars and thirty-four cents per barrel.

Corpus Christi, India rates increased one hundred and fifty percent, and Russian Baltic shipments more than doubled.

War risk insurance for a Hormuz passage has risen from roughly two hundred and fifty thousand dollars to as much as ten million.

And effectively, this would mean taking on the riskiest freight leg of the journey themselves, uh, and then selling it to their customers once they get it out of the danger zone.

Uh, but this primarily seems to be crude from Ras Tanura inside the strait, uh, not from Yanbu in the Red Sea.

So how are Saudi's Yanbu, uh, exports getting to market now, John?

So Yanbu exports have actually fallen off a lot.

Um, so those are essentially the two options that are running.

There is one VLCC so far this year that has gone south and gone to Pakistan, but the Chinese trade appears to have completely vanished.

Additionally, you mentioned Ras Tanura.

Saudis are now also getting back into the Ras Tanura game.

While cargo activities from Saudi facilities inside the Persian Gulf has recently increased significantly.

So satellite imagery indicates that vessels capable of carrying at least 9 million barrels loaded at or near Saudi Arabia's, uh, Ras Tanura facilities over the past week.

Saudi Arabia has also assembled a large cluster of oil supertankers outside the Gulf-

Mm