Kpler says Hormuz crude is back at its prewar pace. The fuel is not.

Crude shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, the sea lane that carries oil from the Persian Gulf to the world, are back at Kpler's prewar pace for crude. Fuel shipments have not come back.

Kpler, which tracks tankers, put crude through the strait at a seven-day average of 13.5 million barrels a day as of Monday. That matches the firm's own measure of crude shipments before the war. On Tuesday, Kpler put oil flows through the strait at 13.2 million barrels a day, 77% of the 17 million barrels a day that passed through before the war.

Refined products, the diesel, gasoline and other fuels made from crude, averaged 677,000 barrels a day through the strait. Before the war, that figure was 3.6 million.

Why the fuel has not followed

The routes that brought the crude back do not carry fuel. In August, more than 70% of the crude that crossed the strait switched tankers off Oman or the United Arab Emirates, Kpler said. US military escorts still take ships through.

"It's very expensive and it's a huge U.S. military commitment," Helima Croft, head of global commodity strategy at RBC Capital Markets, said of the escorts.

About 40% of Gulf crude now skips the strait by pipeline in Saudi Arabia and the UAE, Kpler estimates, up from 17% before the war. Saudi Arabia's line to the Red Sea was shut earlier this month after a drone launched from Iraq damaged it. About half of those flows are moving again, JPMorgan said.

On August 20, Kpler said Middle East refineries were running around 7.3 million barrels a day, against 9.9 million in February, because of physical damage and because fuel was hard to ship out through the strait. In its September report, the International Energy Agency said product shipments through the strait were still severely constrained, and that disruptions to Russia's refining system had made the fuel loss worse. Bypass routes and US escorts, the agency said, were what had begun to bring crude back.

"The crude market has largely normalized even as refined product supplies remain constrained," said Natasha Kaneva, head of global commodities strategy at JPMorgan.

In a note on Tuesday, JPMorgan said Middle East crude exports, pipelines included, are at 98% of the rate before the war. Fuel exports, including diesel and gasoline, are at 58% of their old rate. Strait flows, the bank said, have returned to late-June highs of nearly 13 million barrels a day. That comparison is with June, not with before the war.

By midafternoon in New York, heating oil futures, the market's price for a fuel close to diesel, were up 4.3% at $4.70 a gallon. US crude was up 1.4% at $90.66 a barrel.

The United States Oil Fund BUSO, which holds near-term futures on that crude, fell 4.4% on Tuesday and was up 1.7% by midafternoon Wednesday.

On September 8, the European Union's Oil Coordination Group, which watches oil supply, said there was no supply problem in the EU at that time. Demand for jet fuel and diesel was being met by higher output from European refineries and by supplies from elsewhere.

Spain's National Statistics Institute said Tuesday that a preliminary estimate put September inflation at 4.9%, from 4.3% in August. It pointed to vehicle fuel and lubricant prices, which rose after falling a year earlier, and to package holidays, which fell less than last September.

In Australia, automotive fuel prices rose 14.8% in August from July. The statistics bureau said the rise was driven by higher world oil prices and by the unwinding of the rest of the federal government's fuel excise relief, a break on the fuel tax.

On Saturday, President Trump rejected Iran's offer of a seven-day ceasefire tied to reopening the strait.

"They made a proposal but I reject it," he told reporters at the White House.

The Wall Street Journal reported that he told aides he expects to resume bombing Iran after November's midterm elections. Kpler's crude count is moving under US military escort and through pipelines, in a war the White House has not agreed to pause.