Gulf Crude Flows Fall to 8.5 Million bpd, Stranding $1.27 Billion a Day at $110 Brent While EIA Assumes Only 4.5 Million bpd Shut In

Brent crude futures traded at $110.36 per barrel on Tuesday morning, up 0.74% from Monday's $109.55 settle, per OilPrice.net quotes taken shortly after 13:00 UTC. WTI was at $99.60 per barrel, down $4.06 from Monday's $103.66 settle, as the expiring front-month contract thinned out. The Brent-WTI gap widened to $10.76 from $5.89 on Monday. The driver is physical: Kpler data cited by OilPrice.com shows the daily average oil flow out of the Persian Gulf fell to 8.5 million barrels from more than 20 million barrels a day two weeks earlier.

What 11.5 million barrels a day costs

Reuters, citing Kpler, counted at least 18 tanker attacks over the previous two weeks. Exports had recovered to pre-war levels earlier in October before Iranian strikes cut them again. The Houthis also struck Saudi Arabia again, targeting energy infrastructure, airports and military sites.

The flow drop is at least 11.5 million barrels a day, because the earlier figure was "more than 20 million." Priced at $110.36 Brent, that is roughly $1.27 billion of crude each day that is not reaching buyers. Over a week, the figure is close to $8.9 billion.

This is a proxy, not a loss figure. Some barrels sit in storage or reroute through Saudi Arabia's East-West pipeline to Yanbu, and Kpler's numbers are short-window averages. The calculation does show the scale of the shortfall against a market that prices Brent at $110.36.

EIA's shut-in assumption versus the tanker data

EIA's October Short-Term Energy Outlook assumes conflict-related shut-ins average 4.5 million barrels a day in the fourth quarter, falling to 2.7 million in the first quarter of 2027. It forecasts Q4 Brent at $104.69 per barrel, up about $14 from September's outlook, per Ship and Bunker's summary of the report. EIA finalized its inputs on October 1.

The Kpler flow gap is 2.6 times EIA's shut-in assumption, though the two measure different things: shut-in production versus observed export flows. If flows stay near 8.5 million barrels a day through the quarter, the outlook's supply side looks light. Today's Brent print is already 5.4% above EIA's Q4 average.

Archive comparison: what changed since October 12

Our October 12 forecast split recorded Brent at $106.14 against Goldman Sachs' $90 December target, a gap of $16.14. At $110.36 the gap to that target is $20.36, or 18.4% of today's price. BMI's view on that date was that Brent would hold "above $100 per barrel" for the coming months.

Goldman estimated geopolitical risk adds more than $20 per barrel, per our earlier coverage. The $20.36 gap to the bank's year-end call now matches that premium estimate. Forecasters disagree on timing: Goldman expects a December unwind, while EIA and BMI keep prices above $100 into the winter.

Risk premium versus flows

ING's Warren Patterson and Ewa Manthey wrote that the market is pricing in a significant risk premium given the situation's volatility. They said the war premium would fade only if flows stayed stable and strong, adding, "Clearly, there are no signs of this yet." The latest Kpler flows support that reading.

The expiry of the front-month WTI contract on October 20, which we flagged in our October 19 spread analysis, explains part of the WTI drop. The Brent move reflects the Gulf flow data. Traders will watch Tuesday's API inventory report and Wednesday's EIA weekly petroleum status report for any US crude draw that adds to the pressure.