Standard Chartered reports oil flow in Hormuz is not back to normal

Sell-side tracking of tanker traffic through the strait is a standing input in crude pricing, and in past episodes of disruption to Hormuz flows the pattern has been a staged normalisation rather than a step change, with traffic recovering unevenly across vessel types and flags as insurers and owners reprice war-risk cover at different speeds. A bank commodities desk reporting that flows remain below normal implies the market's prior assumption of a quick resumption needs revisiting, since it is the gap between expected and actual throughput that drives the prompt end of the curve and timespreads rather than the headline risk premium itself. The transmission runs through freight rates and insurance costs first, then into WTI and Brent front-month and the shape of the curve, with Asian benchmark differentials reacting more sharply given the share of Gulf crude destined east. The distinction that has mattered in comparable episodes is between flows that are recovering slowly and flows that have stalled, as the former fades risk premia while the latter rebuilds them. Follow-ons worth noting are subsequent tanker-tracking updates, any change in war-risk insurance pricing, and whether other desks confirm or dispute the read.