Cost of shipping oil is going up globally bc tankers are getting taken out on a regular basis. Fewer tankers -> higher tanker rates High Crude Px + Low lifting cost in Middle East -> Gulf countries are willing to pay higher fees to transit oil thru SoH Focus on oil shipment thru SoH is now the wrong measurement. Globally transported crude is the correct one. # of tankers is hard physical data pt. It can't be manipulated by the finance bros. If the px @ which UAE is willing to sell crude + cost of getting it through SoH < px @ which another country is willing to sell crude -> available tankers will do the risky journey of going thru SoH. If tankers are not at capacity in usage, then transits will happen as long as price of crude > UAE crude px + cost of transit. Iran is not sinking multiple tankers every day. May it's taking out several a week. As such, gulf countries desperate to keep their exports going will keep trying to force tankers thru as long as there are US aircraft jamming Iranian radar & shooting down drones. Current dynamics will only get worse as # of available tankers shrink globally. Even as productive as Chinese shipyards are, they can only produce so many oil tankers/year. So I think it's very important to think about things this way the next time you see another post on X about Iran losing control of SoH or no tankers are transiting. Yes, tankers are transiting. The reason they are transiting is due to the high oil px. We will continue to see a lot of transits as long as new tankers are getting produced. But if you just think about the hilariousness of the situation. if it costs $150m to buy a new VLCC & 1/10th of tankers going thru get struck, then the cost of getting it through SoH is at least $15m. Likely much higher than that, since crew members need to be paid more & there are much higher insurance cost & various other cost. But here is the thing, if shipping 2m barrel to China now costs $50m, what's another $20m if it comes from UAE? UAE will just need to charge $10 less per barrel. But in the end, there is still only so many tankers spread out globally.