Topic

#OPEC

2 articles

A gas station price sign in front of a Gulf Coast oil refinery under an approaching hurricane sky, late afternoon golden hour, photojournalistic documentary style, shot on 35mm f1.4
Jun 1, 2026 • 6 min read

Three Calendars Just Synced. All of Them Break Trump.

Hurricane season opens today. Summer driving demand is climbing toward the July 4 peak. OPEC+ meets in six days. Each of those calendars is normally managed by a buffer of spare crude, full strategic stocks, and a stable refinery fleet. In June 2026, every one of those buffers is severely depleted. The IEA puts Middle East spare capacity at a record-low 320,000 barrels a day. The SPR has been drawn by 17.5 million barrels since March. Saudi Arabia's OPEC quota for June is 10.291 million barrels per day. Its actual March production was 7.76 million. The shock absorbers are running on fumes before the demand season starts.

#Iran war#hurricane season#OPEC
An aerial photojournalistic view of the Strait of Hormuz at dusk with stranded supertankers anchored in the chokepoint, while a massive industrial pipeline arcs across the desert in the foreground heading toward the Gulf of Oman, golden hour light, atmospheric haze, editorial photography style
Apr 29, 2026 • 8 min read

UAE Built a Pipe Around Hormuz. Then It Quit OPEC.

On April 28, the UAE announced it would leave OPEC and OPEC+ effective May 1, ending 59 years of membership. Mainstream coverage frames it as a quota fight. The structural fact: the UAE is the only Gulf member of OPEC whose flagship oil terminal sits outside the Strait of Hormuz, with a 1.5-million-barrel pipeline that bypasses the chokepoint entirely. They quit because they could.

#UAE#OPEC#Strait of Hormuz