Crude rises a fourth day to $91 Brent as US refiners cash in on war-cut supply
Crude climbed for a fourth straight day, with Brent at $91.53 a barrel and WTI at $85.47, after tanker data showed traffic through the Strait of Hormuz slowing again amid harder talk from both Tehran and Washington. For US refiners, the squeeze is a payday. For anyone buying gasoline in the back half of driving season, it means a bigger number at the rack.
Refiners pocketing the spread
Reuters laid out the trade Aug 19: refiners in the US and India have ramped exports to buyers who used to lean on Middle East and Russian barrels, and analysts say those refiners are pulling in billions while the wars keep supply tight. The Gulf Coast is where you see it. Crude exports rose 20% week over week to 3.6 million b/d, Enterprise's Houston loadings jumped 21% to 786,000 b/d, and Seaway Freeport shipped its first export cargo in eight weeks.
None of that helps the domestic pump. Citgo just shut the FCCU at its Corpus Christi refinery in the latest upset, pulling gasoline-making capacity offline right when the market is tight. Prices are climbing, and the politics are following: a Reuters/Ipsos poll put Trump's approval at 33%, its lowest of his presidency, with gas prices and the Iran war cited as drags. Both parties are now cutting gas-price attack ads for the midterms.
An export door opens for ethanol
Guatemala started a nationwide E10 mandate July 1, the first Central American country to require a 10% blend, and the first US ethanol shipments have already landed. Stations across the country are due to carry E10 by Aug 21. For a US ethanol producer sitting on corn-belt supply, that is a fresh export outlet at a time when the domestic blend wall is a hard ceiling.
The bigger domestic prize is still stuck. Senate Majority Leader Thune said the path for year-round E15 faces a hurdle from small refineries worried about the compliance cost, which keeps Unleaded 88 a seasonal patchwork for c-store operators who want to sell it all year. Iowa's ethanol backers, meanwhile, aired their own concerns to state auditor Rob Sand this week.
Why Russian barrels matter to your rack
The reason US and Indian refiners can command these margins traces back to what is not running. Ukrainian drones hit the Ufa refinery complex in Bashkortostan, one of Russia's largest, damaging a processing unit that was already down for repairs; the city reported six drones, four shot down. RBN Energy called declining Russian refinery output a major, sometimes overlooked, factor keeping global product prices high and pushing trade flows toward suppliers who can still load. Inside Russia the strain shows in motor oil, where prices have run up 1.5 to 2 times in two months and some grades are simply out of stock.
What to watch
Hormuz traffic and the tone out of Tehran and Washington set the near-term crude floor, so watch which way both move. Citgo's Corpus Christi FCCU, and whether it comes back fast enough to matter for Gulf gasoline. Thune's vote count on E15, and whether he reaches 60 before the small-refiner objection buries it again. And Aug 21, when Guatemala's stations are supposed to go live and show how much US ethanol the launch actually pulls.