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What's Going on with Shipping? - Inside the 2026 Tanker War: Hormuz Strikes, Soaring Rates & Diesel Shortages (www.youtube.com)
submitted 3 days ago by to c/videos@hexbear.net
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In this What The Hormuz edition of What's Going on With Shipping, Sal Mercogliano breaks down the escalating reality of the 2026 Tanker War in the Strait of Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb, responding directly to claims that commercial vessels are simply "sailing on" through drone and missile strikes.

Using the latest maritime data, satellite tracking, and intelligence reports, we examine what is really happening to global shipping lanes, crude carriers, and refined product markets.

Key Topics Covered in This Episode:

⚓The Reality of Tanker Attacks: Analyzing the strike on MV Cape Dao, crew casualties, and why commercial vessels are taking serious damage in the southern transit corridor.

⚓UKMTO & CENTCOM Data: Breaking down weekly transit figures, naval escort numbers, and why traffic remains roughly 75% below pre-conflict levels.

⚓Skyrocketing Charter Rates: How VLCC rates surged past $1.2 million per day on Persian Gulf to China routes, and why clean product tankers are seeing massive rate spikes.

⚓Global Fuel & Diesel Implications: The impact of proposed U.S. diesel export restrictions, refinery constraints, and rising global shortages.

⚓Seized Iranian Tankers: The status of interdicted tankers transporting crude to the U.S. and the legal and operational complications ahead.

⚓Depleting Global Oil Reserves: Why declining onshore storage and the post-February supply gap are driving market volatility.

At 25m~ in he links this graph showing global on-shore oil inventories across years. Oof:

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[–] 4 points 3 days ago (2 children)

This was a super dense video answering bunches of questions I've had but not wanted to slog through the effort to find their answers. Thanks for the share!

Bro does seem terminally soft-MAGA- and/or mil-service- and/ or lib-pilled, but that's my first (~half hour) glance and regardless, he does a refreshing degree of saying what he thinks quickly and then getting back to the details. And I guess I mean...infodump with half-clear and somewhat minimized POV is just insanely more useful and accessible than info-trickle with tons of incoherent and vague POV.

Is dude cool or merely useful?

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  • [–] [S] 6 points 2 days ago*

    I've been watching him since the channel started and followed his Hormuz coverage throughout this war. He was a merchant-mariner which is military-adjacent, but I don't think he was ever in the military. Now he teaches maritime subjects and his main loyalty seems to be to the ships' crews regardless of their nationality. Hotcouchguy probably correctly flagged him as a liberal institutionalist and I've never gotten any indication that he's politically motivated beyond some kind of MSNBC lib.

    I would definitely consider him useful though. He really knows his stuff when it comes to ships, the industry, and markets around them. I can't think of a time he's been misleading and it's such a niche subject that I don't have a radical alternative. For assessing this conflict it's been a big help.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 days ago

    I've seen a fair bit of his stuff, I think he's a "centrist" liberal institutionalist who has both sympathies and frustrations with trump, and either of those could surface depending on how well/poorly things are going. I imagine a lot of mid-level officers have similar politics, and would make a similar performance of not displaying their (mundane and semi-coherent) opinions.

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    • [–] [B] 1 point 3 days ago

    I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:

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