Empty tankers are turning away from Fujairah, the Gulf's last buffer

The noise is in Riyadh, the signal in the Gulf of Oman

The headline came from Riyadh. According to The National, Energy Minister Abdulaziz bin Salman said on 11 October that supply would keep flowing whatever happens. Oilprice reported that Gulf oil exports had recovered in September to 81% of pre-war levels, and crude and condensate shipments to 91%. Yet on 12 October, Arab News reported, the same minister declined to give an export figure. Describing an 8-month crisis, he did not share a single export number.

The quiet parameter sits on the Gulf of Oman coast, at the transfer hub outside Hormuz. Bloomberg tanker-tracking data, reported by GuruFocus and Briefs, show that at least 10 empty VLCCs heading for Fujairah stopped or turned back in recent days, along with several Suezmaxes. A VLCC is a supertanker that carries 2 million barrels. According to Maritime Executive, Kpler put Gulf crude exports at about 10 million barrels a day as of 7 October, down from 15.5 million in September. The gap between the September average and the October trend shows how fragile the recovery is.

1 · The logistics constraint and its threshold

The Gulf has two routes that bypass Hormuz, and both are at their limits. The first is the Saudi East-West pipeline. The National reports that it stopped after the Houthi attacks in September and had recovered to about 5.8 million barrels a day by 6 October. Its capacity is roughly 7 million barrels a day, so the line is running at 83% with no spare outlet behind it.

The second is the ship-to-ship transfer system. Small shuttle tankers cross the strait and offload onto large vessels waiting off Fujairah and Oman. The system relied on the assumption that the waiting area was safe. According to Maritime Executive, shots were fired near a VLCC anchored off Fujairah on 8 October. Argus data cited by Oilprice show that a Suezmax carrying Iraqi crude was hit on 11 October, with 2 seafarers missing. The threshold is this: if empty VLCCs stop arriving, shuttle tankers cannot discharge, and exports halt even while the strait stays open.

2 · Supply security and critical thresholds

What caps the price today is not extra barrels but vanished demand. According to Arab News, OPEC Secretary General Haitham al-Ghais put 2026 demand growth at 400,000 barrels a day on 12 October; at the start of the year the forecast was 1.4 million. Al-Ghais gave 3 reasons why the price has not reached $200: lower Chinese imports, reserve drawdowns led by the OECD, and slowing demand.

That buffer can run out. Oilprice reports that the International Energy Agency's coordinated release in the spring totalled 400 million barrels. According to a Bloomberg report published by Energy Connects, Japan urged Asian countries on 12 October to build up their stocks. The US Energy Information Administration put Japan's reserves at 263 million barrels in April. Refilling the released stocks will come on top of the 1.7 million barrels a day of demand growth OPEC expects for 2027. Investing.com data show the ICE Brent December contract (LCOZ6) closed at $106.12 on 12 October.

Barrels loaded outside Hormuz already command a premium. Investing.com data show Murban futures, Abu Dhabi crude delivered at Fujairah, closed at $110.60 on 9 October, when the Brent December contract stood at $104.72. The gap of about $5.9 is what Asia pays for Gulf barrels that do not depend on Hormuz. If the Fujairah transfer hub falters, this premium should be the first price to react.

3 · Second-round effects

The constraint is spreading through insurability. According to Novinite, Lukoil's manager in Bulgaria said war-risk cover for a tanker in the Black Sea had risen from $200,000 to $2.5 million within a few months. With Hormuz and the Black Sea becoming dearer at the same time, the supply of tankers carrying crude to the Mediterranean is squeezed from two directions. Türkiye sits where those two basins meet.

In gas the buffer is already thin. Voltstack's GIE AGSI+ data show EU gas storage at 73.8% full on 11 October, against 83.0% a year earlier and a 5-year average of 88.6%. Investing.com data show the Dutch TTF front-month contract closed at €84.735 per megawatt-hour on 12 October, up 4.05%. Gulf LNG depends on the same transfer and transit constraints. As the oil buffer erodes heading into winter, the strain therefore shows up in gas bills too.

4 · What would refute this reading

Our thesis is that over the next 3 months the constraint on Gulf supply will be not Hormuz itself but the utilisation of the two routes around it. As lost demand and the stock buffer thin out, that constraint will pass more directly into prices. We see this as the most likely path, with a probability of 50%.

The first refutation would be the number of empty VLCCs heading for Fujairah rising again within 2 weeks in tanker-tracking data, with Kpler's Gulf crude exports climbing above 12 million barrels a day. That would mean the transfer node is holding. The second would be the ICE Brent December contract falling below $100 without further stock releases, which would mean the buffer is thicker than we think. The third would be the East-West pipeline reaching its 7 million barrel capacity alongside rising Yanbu loadings. That would mean Saudi outlets alone can close the gap.