DeansMusings

This is the first time in any conflict where a war has first been started and then diplomatic pressure resorted to, by the aggressor. The US has announced its toughest ever sanctions on Iran in the hope that Iran, which has survived so far – with a population more united behind the regime and against the US and its missile and drones largely intact, will agree to US terms to end the conflict . In this context, I’d like to revisit some of the data points I covered earlier, to see how it leaves both sides. Some of these were covered in my previous post. Iran war - Part 3 Oil flows through the strait of Hormuz:  Compared to approx 3 million barrels/day oil (3 MBD) exiting the strait during the height of the conflict in March-April, tankertracker.com (which counts tankers verified from satellite signals), shows the equivalent of 6-7 MBD, leaving the strait in August. This is a third of the oil flowing before the war - assuming some tankers have trackers switched off, it may be 40...

 At the time of writing this, the Iran war has resumed for 14 days and it is a good opportunity to review my previous assumptions made about the war and on India’s oil security. 14 days of consecutive fighting (not brief fighting during a ceasefire) is enough time for the conflict to take on a shape that one can draw conclusions from. This is a continuation from the two previous articles in this series, focussing more on the economic consequences of the war an how they might shape military operations. https://rpdeans.blogspot.com/2026/05/iran-war-part-2-calm-before-storm.html India's coming oil crisis I had made the following predictions: 1.        Iranian oil wells (production) will not irrecoverably collapse from ending exports, because most oil produced is consumed domestically (thereby oil wells will produce more than their minimum viable output). This was correct. 2.        Iran would not feel the loss of oil revenue ...

My previous post on the Iran war, detailed how the closure of the Strait of  Hormuz would affect energy sales and impact the economies in the region. https://rpdeans.blogspot.com/2026/05/iran-war-part-2-calm-before-storm.html This crisis would come from the closure of the strait of Hormuz, affecting 20% of the world’s oil and from the longer term damage to oil fields, when the amount of oil pumped is lower than the minimum flow needed to keep an oil well functioning (production is cut where there is no capacity to store extracted oil). I had taken only a passing interest in India, as I was covering the military aspects of this conflict and because the Govt and media seemed upbeat about India handling the energy shortage. A more detailed look at the numbers for India gave me cause for concern.   As a major oil importer, India will be affected more than others because we have done the least, so far, to mitigate against this. While this is not a crisis of the Govt's making...