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Power Up

A Reuters Open Interest newsletter

By Ron Bousso, ROI Energy Columnist

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Hello Power Up readers,

On the Iran war front, the past few days have offered a bit of hope mixed with plenty of chaos. At the centre of it all are stop-start peace deal negotiations between Washington and Tehran. Channels of communication are still open, but progress looks glacial at best. Tensions rose in recent days after Tehran struck Kuwait, damaging its airport and injuring dozens, while the U.S. military carried out strikes near the Strait of Hormuz.

At the same time, the U.S. is trying to cool tensions in Lebanon, a requirement that Iran has linked to any deal to end the war. Israel and Lebanon on Wednesday agreed (again) to implement a ceasefire to end hostilities. The catch? It only holds if Hezbollah stops firing and pulls back, even though the Iran-backed militia is not part of the agreement.

Back in Washington, politics is adding another twist. The U.S. House of Representatives has voted to curb Trump’s war powers on Iran. This rare bipartisan rebuke reflects the country’s growing unease over the three-month conflict. The move is largely symbolic for now, but it highlights rising pressure at home as the war drags on.

So for now, the Middle East continues to see-saw between hopes for peace and signs of war. But things rarely stay still in the energy market.

Meanwhile, the trickle of tankers exiting the Strait of Hormuz has gathered pace in recent weeks, as traders adopt stealth measures to make the crossing. While this is freeing some of the vast oil inventories trapped in the Gulf, it does not signal a slow return to normalcy. Instead, it previews the opaque, fragmented energy market the Iran war is set to leave in its wake.

More on this below

I’d like to thank Gavin Maguire for handling the newsletter while I was away on a short break.

Here are a few more headlines:

A surge of U.S. crude oil is arriving in Asia, but the record volumes are nowhere near enough to offset the loss of cargoes from the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz. ROI Asia Commodities Columnist Clyde Russell explains the larger implications.
While oil markets fixate on the surging U.S. supply in 2026, South America is quietly emerging as a key new source of global crude flows, ROI Energy Transition Columnist Gavin Maguire wrote.
And in a sign of how markets are adapting to the Mideast disruption, South Korea's refiners boosted jet fuel exports in May back to pre-Iran war levels, helped by a recovery in crude imports and encouraged by robust refining margins.

As always, don’t hesitate to contact me at ron.bousso@thomsonreuters.com or follow me on LinkedIn with any questions or thoughts.

Top energy headlines

Hormuz trickle

More than four months into the conflict, the U.S. and Iran are still struggling to hammer out an agreement to formally end the war and ‌fully reopen the narrow waterway.

The near-total closure of Hormuz stranded more than 13 million barrels of oil per day within the Gulf, forcing producers to shut down oilfields and refineries, triggering supply shortfalls and economic strain across major importing nations.

Traffic through the strait remains a fraction of pre-war levels. On the face of it, an average of just three tankers a day has crossed in and out of Hormuz since the conflict began - roughly one-tenth of normal volumes - according to shipping monitors including LSEG and Kpler.

But a closer look at oil stocks tells a more nuanced story.

Read the full column

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