Kuwait and Qatar have reportedly increased crude shipments through the Strait of Hormuz to around 1.4mmln BPD, some 70% of pre-conflict levels, according to reports

Flow-recovery headlines out of the Gulf tend to follow a familiar sequence: an initial disruption embeds a geopolitical premium into crude, freight rates and war-risk insurance spike, and each subsequent report of normalising liftings bleeds that premium out of the front of the curve. The operative distinction here is between barrels transiting Hormuz and barrels shut in: volumes moving through the strait at a large share of pre-conflict levels signals the constraint was logistical or precautionary rather than a supply outage, and episodes of that kind have historically seen the premium unwind faster than in episodes involving actual infrastructure damage. The channels to observe are the Brent-Dubai spread and Gulf-to-Asia freight and insurance costs, which have tended to normalise ahead of flat price in past reopening episodes, along with any remaining discount on Gulf grades relative to alternatives. Worth noting is the residual gap to full flows: a partial recovery leaves the market short of pre-conflict supply while removing the tail-risk pricing, a configuration that has previously capped rallies without fully erasing the premium. Follow-ons are confirmation from tanker-tracking data, loading programme revisions from the region's national oil companies, and whether counterparties are lifting cargoes without the insurance frictions that marked the conflict period.