u/SashSail

The map shrank, not grew.

• Cambodia — I had this as an active shortage on the March station closures (~2,000 of 6,300 stations shut). Re-checking, the March record itself shows only ~400 still closed within days as the rest reopened. Nothing newer since March 23. Downgraded.
• Italy airport jet fuel — the Air BP rationing NOTAMs at 7 airports. Last confirmation mid-May, and the reporting then said Italy managed it without major disruption. Removed.
• EU systemic jet fuel shortage — ACI Europe's warning that 100+ airports would hit a systemic shortage within three weeks. That deadline came and went in April. The European Commission said in May there were no EU shortages. Removed.

Net: 31 tracked shortages down to 29. The diesel-gets-harder call in my July post did not play out the way I framed it in the aviation-fuel space specifically. Worth saying plainly.

What's still real and getting worse: the US strategic buffer.

The Strategic Petroleum Reserve dropped below 300 million barrels — 298.7M as of Aug 12 (DOE), down 6.1M on the week. First time under 300M since January 1983.

Important caveats, because this number gets misreported constantly:

• The reserve's safe operating minimum is around 70M barrels per DOE. There's a separate 252.4M statutory threshold that restricts certain drawdowns. Neither is near.
• It's structured as an exchange, not a sale — from a 172M-barrel release in March. Companies borrow the crude and must return it plus a premium.
• Commercial (non-strategic) crude went the opposite direction the same week: a surprise 17.4M barrel build, biggest since January 2023.

So: strategic reserve at a 43-year low, commercial inventories posting their largest build in three and a half years, simultaneously.

Availability, since that's what this sub cares about:

No physical rationing in the US. Every station has fuel. AAA national average ~$4.07/gal and remarkably flat for weeks despite crude swinging hard. The mechanism is price rationing, not allocation.

Still-active shortages worth knowing about: Russia (78 of 83 regions showing disruption signal, export bans extended), Cuba, Nepal (LPG), South Sudan, Libya, Myanmar/Laos, Kyrgyzstan/Tajikistan.

One genuinely unresolved thing: there's a large discrepancy in how much oil is actually moving through Hormuz. The US Energy Secretary says a 9M bpd seven-day average. Barclays estimated ~3M bpd for the week ending Aug 7. That's not a rounding difference and I can't resolve it — flagging it rather than picking a side.

Sources: DOE, EIA, AAA, CNBC, Barclays. Full tracker at https://global-energy-flow.com/

I've been tracking real-time wholesale electricity prices, demand, and generation mix across 25 grids — most of the US, UK, Australia, and continental Europe — and the price spread between grids right now is bigger than I expected. [Screenshot 1: highest-price entry] vs [Screenshot 2: cheapest entry] — that's a real multi-hundred-percent difference in wholesale price for the same hour, mostly coming down to generation mix and how much low-cost supply (wind, hydro, nuclear) is on the grid at that moment.

Built this as a side project — GridHub — pulling directly from EIA, ENTSO-E, NESO, Elexon, and AEMO. It's free to browse; there's also a pay-per-call API behind it if anyone wants programmatic access.

Happy to answer questions about the data or how wholesale pricing actually works if useful.

Hey r/x402,I just shipped https://nohumans.directory — a directory built for agents, not humans.

• Automated probing every 15 min + longitudinal reputation scoring
• Verified status after 3 clean probes
• Simple discover endpoint: GET /v1/discover?q=stock&min_score=0.8
• Live MCP server with find_paid_service + get_service_details
• 39 listings so far (mostly finance, data, commerce)

Agents can query it before spending money to find reliable, low-latency paid services.MCP connect (Claude Code): claude mcp add --transport http nohumans https://nohumans.directory/mcpllms.txt: https://nohumans.directory/llms.txtWould love feedback from anyone building spending agents or running x402 endpoints. New listings welcome.

Two things that have nothing to do with each other happened in the same three weeks and they're now compounding.

Thing one: the Strait of Hormuz. A peace deal signed June 17 gave Iran a 60-day toll-free reopening window, and it genuinely worked for a few weeks — oil traded back down to pre-war levels by June 29, Qatari LNG carriers started re-entering the Gulf, tanker traffic picked back up. Then the week of July 7 it all came apart: the ceasefire ended, Iran fired on six Gulf states in a single barrage (Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Jordan, Oman, UAE — hit the UAE's Fujairah bypass terminal directly), the US Navy reinstated its blockade on Iranian shipping July 14, and Yemen's Houthis formally joined the war, threatening to close the Red Sea's Bab el-Mandeb strait too. A drone hit a docked tanker at Iraq's Basra export terminal July 16. Brent gained back three weeks of decline in about five days.

Thing two, happening at the same time and mostly unrelated: Ukraine's drone campaign against Russian oil refineries has escalated hard. Ukraine's own General Staff claims 42.74% of Russia's designed refining capacity is now disabled (independent analysts estimate the real functional number closer to a third, which is still enormous). The one that matters most: Omsk, Russia's single largest refinery, was forced offline by a strike the week of July 6-7. Two more (Saratov, Kstovo) were also hit. Russian crude processing has fallen to its lowest level since 2005. Russia's response: it banned all diesel exports on July 8, running through the end of the month.

Why this compounds instead of just adding up: Europe and the US don't buy Russian diesel directly anymore (banned since 2023), but that export ban still tightens the global diesel pool everyone else competes for — right as the Hormuz reopening that was supposed to ease Gulf supply just reversed. Diesel specifically (more than gasoline) is the product that gets squeezed hardest by Middle East supply disruptions, because Middle Eastern crude refines into more of it proportionally.

Concrete effects already showing up:

• Qatar's Ras Laffan LNG facility — which had just started recovering export volumes post-ceasefire — has that recovery interrupted again
• US Strategic Petroleum Reserve is at 316.5 million barrels, the lowest since April 1983, just as a new supply shock hits (the reserve built to buffer exactly this kind of event keeps shrinking during the event itself)
• Australia's five-city average petrol price has climbed roughly 5 cents/litre in the last two and a half weeks as an excise relief measure partially unwinds
• 40+ Russian regions are now restricting domestic fuel sales, Crimea is under a fuel-related state of emergency

None of this is "the world is running out of oil" — US natural gas storage is comfortably above the 5-year average, and EU gas storage refill is actually running slightly ahead of pace for the first time this cycle. It's specifically a diesel and Gulf-LNG story, and it's a story about two separate shocks landing in the same three-week window rather than one big cause.

I track this stuff daily at global-energy-flow.com

Made this to track something I follow closely: the Strait of Hormuz, which roughly a fifth of the world's oil transits. A 14-point peace deal was signed June 17 with a 60-day toll-free reopening window. It actually worked at first — Brent fell all the way back to pre-war levels by June 29. Then the ceasefire broke down the week of July 7, and the price gave back three weeks of progress in about five days.

Data is ICE Brent settles/intraday, sourced from CNBC, Reuters, TradingEconomics and Investing.com — I track this daily for an open-source energy tracker I run, chart made from the underlying data table.

Weekly update, one week on. The tracker now stands at 32 confirmed fuel-supply disruptions worldwide — 19 active shortages plus 13 on watch — down from 35 last week. The 14-day re-confirmation audit removed several lower-confidence pins while a few regional stresses eased on hopes of supply normalization. ("Active" = confirmed physical shortage: stations dry, rationing in force, or a fuel-driven carrier/route collapse. "Watch" = price/contingency stress that hasn't hit the pump yet.)The dominant story this week is the sharp de-escalation signal: On June 14 the US and Iran reached a memorandum of understanding for a ceasefire on all fronts, with Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz and the US to lift its naval blockade. Formal signing is scheduled for June 19 in Geneva.

Oil markets reacted immediately. Brent and WTI sold off sharply on the news, with prices dropping toward the $77–$83 range in recent sessions after earlier spikes. This follows months of Hormuz disruption (now Day ~109+, the longest major post-WWII chokepoint closure), which had kept a heavy supply premium in place despite IEA-coordinated stock releases and alternative routing.The fragile hope is that flows can begin normalizing after signing, though executives caution it will take months for tankers, inventories, and production to fully recover — meaning physical shortages and elevated prices could linger into Q3, especially for jet fuel heading into peak summer travel. Europe continues to watch jet fuel stocks closely, with earlier warnings about dipping toward critical thresholds.

Live map : https://global-energy-flow.com/shortages/

Country pages:
US: https://global-energy-flow.com/shortages/united-states/
UK: https://global-energy-flow.com/shortages/united-kingdom/
Canada: https://global-energy-flow.com/shortages/canada/
Australia: https://global-energy-flow.com/shortages/australia/
EU: https://global-energy-flow.com/shortages/eu/

Forecast charts:
EU petrol & diesel availability: https://global-energy-flow.com/shortages/eu/forecast/
US gas prices + SPR: https://global-energy-flow.com/shortages/united-states/forecast/
UK jet fuel days-of-cover: https://global-energy-flow.com/shortages/united-kingdom/forecast/
Australia petrol & diesel: https://global-energy-flow.com/shortages/australia/forecast/

(Sources throughout: government decrees, regulator filings, operator statements, IEA, GIE AGSI+, ACCC, AAA, EIA WPSR, Bruegel, IATA, Cirium, TradingEconomics, national press, and open-source conflict trackers. Each disruption is dropped if it can't be re-confirmed within 14 days.)

Weekly update, one week on. The tracker now stands at 35 confirmed fuel-supply disruptions worldwide — 19 active shortages plus 16 on watch — down one from 36 last week. Monday's 14-day re-confirmation audit removed three Asian watch-tier pins (Timor-Leste, Vietnam, Laos couldn't be re-confirmed within the 14-day rule), demoted Thailand from active to watch, and added New Zealand (MBIE Phase 1 Watchful — formal monitoring posture, not a panic add). Smaller pin count, higher map credibility. ("Active" = confirmed physical shortage: stations dry, rationing in force, or a fuel-driven carrier/route collapse. "Watch" = price/contingency stress that hasn't hit the pump yet.)

The big story this week is the whipsaw from last week. Last week I posted that the US–Iran deal had collapsed on June 1 and crude had jumped on the Bab el-Mandeb threat. Over the three sessions that followed, the supply premium drained: by Friday June 5 Brent had settled at $93.05 (–2.3% on the day, –2% on the week — fully unwinding the Jun 3 US–Iran kinetic-exchange spike), WTI at $90.30 (–3%). Three demand-side forces compounded simultaneously: Chinese crude imports fell to a 10-year low in May (–25% YoY per the General Administration of Customs); OPEC+ approved a third consecutive monthly +188 kbpd output increase for July at the June 5 JMMC; and President Trump publicly criticised Israeli strikes on Beirut Friday and urged Netanyahu to avoid retaliating against Iran — the first time the White House had visibly leaned against Israeli escalation.

Then over the weekend, fresh kinetic exchange. Iran and Israel exchanged missile strikes June 6–7 — after roughly ten days of de-escalation, the fragile ceasefire architecture Trump had been pushing was challenged. Brent surged intraday Monday June 8 to approximately $98 before easing as Iran stated it had ended military operations against Israel and Trump publicly called for a new 60-day ceasefire. Monday close: Brent $94.10 (+1.1% from Friday's $93.05), WTI $93.95 (+4.0% from $90.30). The de-escalation pull is challenged but not broken — Iran's Monday statement is a positive signal, but the weekend exchange showed how brittle the ceasefire architecture remains.

Live map + country pages: https://global-energy-flow.com/shortages/

Country pages:

• US: https://global-energy-flow.com/shortages/united-states/
• UK: https://global-energy-flow.com/shortages/united-kingdom/
• Canada: https://global-energy-flow.com/shortages/canada/
• Australia: https://global-energy-flow.com/shortages/australia/
• EU: https://global-energy-flow.com/shortages/eu/

Forecast charts:

• EU petrol & diesel availability: https://global-energy-flow.com/shortages/eu/forecast/
• US gas prices + SPR: https://global-energy-flow.com/shortages/united-states/forecast/
• UK jet fuel days-of-cover: https://global-energy-flow.com/shortages/united-kingdom/forecast/
• Australia petrol & diesel: https://global-energy-flow.com/shortages/australia/forecast/

(Sources throughout: government decrees, regulator filings, operator statements, IEA, GIE AGSI+, ACCC, AAA, EIA WPSR, Bruegel, IATA, Cirium, TradingEconomics, ORF Middle East, national press. Each disruption is dropped if it can't be re-confirmed within 14 days — that's what generated this week's net pin-count decline.)

Weekly update, one week on from my last post. The tracker now stands at 36 confirmed fuel-supply disruptions worldwide — 20 active shortages plus 16 on watch — down one from 37 last week (a watch-tier item couldn't be re-confirmed within the 14-day rule and came off). ("Active" = a confirmed physical shortage: stations dry, rationing in force, or a fuel-driven carrier/route collapse. "Watch" = price/contingency stress that hasn't hit the pump yet.)

The big story this week reverses last week's. Over Memorial Day weekend reports surfaced of a preliminary US–Iran 60-day memorandum — Hormuz reopening, mines to be cleared within 30 days — and crude fell to a six-week low (Brent settled ~$91.82 Friday May 29, May down ~17%, biggest monthly drop since 2020). Then on Monday June 1 it fell apart: Iranian media (Tasnim) reported Tehran had suspended communications with Washington after Israeli strikes in Lebanon, and that Iran and its allies were now weighing the full closure of both the Strait of Hormuz AND the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. Crude jumped about 5% intraday (peaking +7–8%) before paring after Trump said Israel and Hezbollah had agreed to halt attacks and that talks with Iran were still "continuing." Brent settled near $94.99 Monday and eased to about $94.58 Tuesday. The strait is still effectively closed (~95% below pre-war), and the escalation risk has gone up, not down — the opposite of where it looked three days ago.

What changed since last week:

• The deal track collapsed. The "preliminary MOU" framing that drove crude to a six-week low is off the table after Iran suspended its messaging channel on June 1. Bab el-Mandeb is now an explicit second-chokepoint threat — ORF Middle East estimates a simultaneous Hormuz + Bab el-Mandeb disruption would put ~25% of global oil and gas and ~30% of container shipping at risk, around $10B/day in trade.
• Australia retail eased further — but held on watch, not removed. The ACCC May 29 print (data to May 27) shows retail diesel −31% / petrol −29% off the pre-conflict peak — a third consecutive improving print, with petrol stocks now the highest since Australia's minimum-stockholding obligation began. Geelong refinery's >90% restart is still expected in June. Kept on watch because Geelong isn't confirmed back yet and the renewed closure threat re-introduces upside risk to a 90%-import-dependent system.
• Cuba's energy collapse holds into a fourth week. Reserves exhausted, 18–22-hour blackouts; US blockade plus Venezuela/Mexico export cuts. Distinct cause from the Hormuz shock.
• Bolivia past three weeks of blockades. La Paz still cut off from food, fuel and medicine; an estimated ~$50M/day economic drain; at least three deaths from blocked ambulances. Domestic dollar crisis, not Hormuz.
• Ecuador stays on watch. Esmeraldas refinery FCC reintegration window arrived today (June 2 was the milestone the operator had set). Recovery has held, but the crude bounce re-pressures Ecuador's 65% refined-fuel import dependency.
• EU gas storage ticked up to 38.52% (May 26) — about +1pp on the week, but still well below the 5-year seasonal norm heading into refill season. The EU's own ban on Russian short-term pipeline gas contracts takes effect June 17 — that's locked in and it weighs on diesel via gas-to-power substitution.
• Air Canada Toronto–JFK and Montreal–JFK ended yesterday (June 1) on the published wind-down schedule — adds to ~13 transborder/international Canadian route cuts year-to-date.

New this week: the EU petrol & diesel forecast chart has been rebuilt for the post–June 1 reality. The May 26 model's "Hormuz reopens now" upside path is no longer credible; the new chart brackets two scenarios — a late-summer Hormuz reopening (diesel troughs around 73% in August before recovery, ending December near 83% of normal) vs. a full-escalation path with Iran following through on Bab el-Mandeb and Russia pre-empting the EU's June 17 gas ban (diesel reaches ~50% of normal by December — the level at which rationing-type controls spread well beyond Slovenia and Hungary).

Live map + country pages (US, UK, CA, AU, EU): https://global-energy-flow.com/shortages/

New EU petrol & diesel forecast chart: https://global-energy-flow.com/shortages/eu/forecast/

(Sources throughout: government decrees, regulator filings, operator statements, IEA, GIE AGSI+, ACCC, Tasnim, ORF Middle East, TradingEconomics, Cirium, national press. Each disruption is dropped if it can't be re-confirmed within 14 days.)

Weekly update, one week on from my last post. The tracker now stands at 37 confirmed fuel-supply disruptions worldwide — 20 active shortages plus 17 on watch — up from 34 last week. ("Active" = a confirmed physical shortage: stations dry, rationing in force, or a fuel-driven carrier/route collapse. "Watch" = price/contingency stress that hasn't hit the pump yet.)

The big story this week is the Strait of Hormuz, closed since Feb 28. Over the weekend a US–Iran deal to reopen it looked close — Trump called it "largely negotiated" — but by Monday it had cooled sharply: the deal wasn't signed as expected, Trump went back to "a Great Deal for all or no Deal," and the US resumed strikes on Iranian vessels it said were laying mines. The strait is still effectively closed, with tanker traffic ~95% below pre-war. Brent settled $103.54 Friday, down ~10% on the week on the on-again-off-again deal hopes.

What changed since last week:

- Cuba escalated to a full-blown power crisis — ~1,300 MW available against a record 2,174 MW deficit, with 20+ hour blackouts.

- Bolivia's fuel crisis deepened — three weeks of blockades choking La Paz, an estimated ~$50M/day economic drain.

- 3 LNG tankers actually transited Hormuz to Pakistan/China/India — real but partial easing, not a reopening.

- EU gas storage ticked up to 37.45% (May 23), but that's still ~18 points below the 5-year seasonal norm heading into the refill season.

- Ecuador is recovering (refinery unit restarted May 15) and stays on watch rather than active.

New this week: two dedicated deep-dive pages — a live Strait of Hormuz status page (day count, oil-price impact, timeline) and an EU gas storage trajectory chart (full-year fill curve vs the 5-year norm and the 80% Nov 1 target).

Live map + country pages (US, UK, CA, AU, EU): https://global-energy-flow.com/shortages/

(Sources throughout: government decrees, regulator filings, operator statements, GIE AGSI+, IEA, national press. Each disruption is dropped if it isn't re-confirmed within 14 days.)

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