1. What happened this week
On 22 September Reuters reported, citing three people familiar with the matter, that the Saudi East-West pipeline is pumping again, at a low rate for now. The target is around 4 million barrels a day. A security source named 40 percent of capacity within a few days and six to eight weeks until the full restart. Three of eleven pumping stations were damaged. Saudi Aramco has made no comment on any of it (Reuters via Arab News and Business Standard, 22 September 2026).
At the port of Yanbu, crude oil loadings were due to resume the same day, and Asian refineries were informally prepared for it. European contract customers, by contrast, get no allocation for October; Aramco told at least two European refineries so, according to Bloomberg, and the report says it applies to all European term customers (Bloomberg via Rigzone, 22 September 2026, and OilPrice, 18 September 2026).
On 18 September the International Energy Agency published figures. Some 7.6 million barrels a day flowed through the Strait of Hormuz in August, 13.1 million less than before the war. Since the war began, the exports lost on this route add up to just under 2.8 billion barrels (IEA, 18 September 2026).
On 19 September the Houthis claimed attacks on Riyadh as well as on Bisha, Taif, Farasan and Aramco facilities in Yanbu. The Saudi-led coalition reported one intercepted ballistic missile and no damage, while residents described an explosion and a black column of smoke above a tank farm at King Khalid airport (Al Jazeera, 19 September 2026). On 21 September a projectile hit the British-flagged tanker La Stephanie as it entered the Strait of Hormuz, and two crew members were slightly injured; a second ship was struck by debris. Both carried on under their own power (UKMTO via Al Arabiya, 21 September 2026).
In the northern Red Sea it ran the other way. The Suez Canal Authority reported 1,358 transits for August, 27 percent more than a year earlier, and on 22 September the OOCL Portugal became the first COSCO ship since the start of the Red Sea crisis to pass through the canal southbound (Suez Canal Authority via Cyprus Shipping News, 22 September 2026).
2. The oil price: six days of losses in a row
Brent has lost ground on six trading days in succession. The futures contract closed at USD 103.87 on 18 September, at USD 100.34 on 21 September and at USD 99.25 per barrel on 22 September (Investing.com). On 23 September it traded at around USD 98.50 during the day (Trading Economics, 23 September 2026).
Two pieces of news are driving the decline. One is the pipeline restart. The other is diplomatic: according to reports by Reuters and Kyodo, Iran offered to reopen the Strait of Hormuz within seven days if the United States eases its military pressure. The semi-official Iranian agency Fars dismissed those reports as unreliable. US Secretary of State Rubio signalled on the margins of the UN General Assembly that he was open to a meeting (Euronews, 22 September 2026).
The futures market trades expectations, not today's scarcity. In freight rates there is no sign of relief. A supertanker on the Gulf to China route earned a time charter equivalent of USD 1,212,503 a day on 17 September. A year earlier, on 4 September 2025, the figure was USD 53,783 (Baltic Exchange, Tanker Report week 38/2026 and week 36/2025).
3. Hormuz: why we changed the classification
Since July the situation map has listed the Strait of Hormuz as closed. With this edition it stands at severely restricted. The reason is not confidence, but the state of the sources.
The IEA reports 7.6 million barrels a day for August. That is far below the pre-war level, but it is not zero (IEA, 18 September 2026). On top of that, Saudi Arabia has been sending large volumes through the strait again since the middle of September. On one loading day at the weekend, according to TankerTrackers, seven supertankers took on around 14 million barrels at Ras Tanura, while MarineTraffic counts six supertankers with just under 12 million barrels for the same day. Gulf loadings have averaged 3.7 million barrels a day since 12 September, against 2.9 million before that (Reuters via Al Arabiya, 21 September 2026, and Gulf News, 23 September 2026).
Set against this are very low ship counts. Windward counted twelve transits on 22 September, and Gulf News names 17 cargo ships for the weekend of 19 and 20 September, against 37 on the comparable weekend before. The US military, for its part, reports record figures: CENTCOM commander Brad Cooper said on 19 September that US forces had escorted the transport of one billion barrels within two months, and that the volume of oil, gas and cargo over the past two weeks was the highest in six months (Fortune, 19 September 2026). The US military is a party to the conflict.
These figures cannot be added up into one number. Ship counts and oil volumes measure different things, and in this situation tankers switch off their transponders. We therefore set out every view side by side with a name and a date, and classify the point according to the most solid volume figure. At present that is the one from the IEA.
4. Diesel: record price in the United States, export ban under debate
While crude oil is getting cheaper, diesel keeps climbing. The US retail price reached USD 6.53 per gallon on 22 September, the highest figure ever recorded; a year earlier it stood at USD 3.69 (AAA, 22 September 2026). President Trump came out the same day in favour of a ban on US diesel exports. Treasury Secretary Bessent said the administration was examining whether a full or partial ban was workable. API chief Mike Sommers countered that export restrictions would only make the problem bigger (Axios, 22 September 2026). The United States exports around 1.6 million barrels of diesel a day (Roll Call, 22 September 2026).
The scarcity comes from the supply side. US refineries ran at 96.8 percent utilisation in the week to 11 September, and at 96.9 percent on the Gulf Coast. There is not much room left there (EIA, weekly report of 16 September 2026). In Amsterdam, Rotterdam and Antwerp, 12.35 million barrels of gasoil and 5.40 million barrels of heavy fuel oil were in storage on 18 September, both more than in August (ENGINE, 18 September 2026). For jet fuel, by contrast, Energy Aspects expects a deficit of 510,000 barrels a day in Europe in the fourth quarter (Reuters, 20 September 2026).
Then there is Russia. Since the middle of September a Ukrainian wave of attacks has been hitting refineries in the interior, among them Yaroslavl on 17 September, the Moscow refinery on 20 September and Kuibyshev on 22 September. The Ukrainian general staff spoke on 21 September of a 45 percent drop in Russia's total refining capacity. Ukraine is a party to the conflict, and this figure has not been independently confirmed (The Moscow Times, Kyiv Post and Kyiv Independent, 17 to 22 September 2026).
5. What this means for households
The falling futures price is not relief yet. Heating oil in Germany most recently cost EUR 1,683 per 1,000 litres, as of 14 September, according to the EU Oil Bulletin. No newer bulletin was available on 23 September; the next one is expected on 24 September. Tecson put the order price on 22 September at 175.0 cents per litre for 3,000 litres, 85.4 percent more than a year earlier. The two surveys measure different things, which is why the figures diverge (EU Oil Bulletin, 14 September 2026, and Tecson, 22 September 2026).
In Switzerland the price stood at CHF 166.03 per 100 litres on 23 September for an order quantity of 3,000 litres (heizoel24.ch). In New York State, NYSERDA reported USD 6.14 per gallon for the survey of 14 September, 66.0 percent more than a year earlier (NYSERDA, report of 18 September 2026).
What changed this week is the direction of expectations, not the price on the invoice. If the East-West pipeline really does reach full output in six to eight weeks, more oil will meet a market whose stocks have been emptying for months. Until then the gap remains between what is traded on the exchange and what a litre costs today.