"Only 9 Days of Sour Crude Left in the US SPR?"
by Larry C. Johnson
"Before diving into the headline of this article, the body of the former Supreme Leader of Iran, Ali Khamenei, who died on February 28 as a result of American-Israeli strikes, has been delivered to Tehran. This marks the start of a week long memorial service, with farewell ceremonies that will take place in several cities across Iran before concluding with the burial in Mashhad on July 9. Representatives of more than 100 countries will be attending, including Russia, China and India. Looney
Laura Loomer is calling for Israel to attack the gathering and murder the new Ayatollah, among others. She apparently does not comprehend that such an attack would likely produce a retaliation against Israel that would threaten the very survival of that nation. While Israel has a track record of launching reckless attacks, I don’t think that Bibi and his generals are this crazy.
The real news is on the oil front. I want to remind you what , President Donald Trump said at the G7 summit in June 2026 regarding the world’s oil supplies: “We only have about 4 weeks of oil left if the Strait stays closed. We have to get it open - now. This is not sustainable.”
I think the vast majority of people who heard Trump’s statement assumed that this applies to both sweet and sour crude. It does not. It is all about the sour crude, which is the source of diesel and aviation fuels.
On March 11, 2026, US Secretary of Energy Chris Wright announced the release of 172 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR) over approximately 120 days in response to rising oil prices resulting from United States attacks on Iran. At that drawdown pace - roughly 1.4 million barrels per day - the sour component of the SPR would be depleted of the released portion within the 120-day window, without any Persian Gulf replacement arriving via Cape routing until late summer at the earliest. So let’s do the math: 20 days in March, 30 days in April, 31 days in May, 30 days in June = 111 days. In other words, we have 9 days of sour crude left in the SPR.
Why is sour crude more important than sweet crude to the US economy? The first thing that seems counterintuitive is that sour crude - crude with high sulfur content, which sounds undesirable - is actually the preferred feedstock for complex US refineries producing diesel and jet fuel. This is not in spite of the sulfur but because of the broader molecular characteristics that accompany high-sulfur crude grades. In other words, without sour crude the US refineries will not be able to produce diesel and jet fuel.
Sour crude grades from the Persian Gulf - Arab Light, Basrah Light, Kuwait Export, Mars blend - tend to share a cluster of properties beyond just sulfur content: API gravity in the medium range (28–34°). This is critical. The atmospheric distillation column separates crude oil into fractions by boiling point. The middle distillate fraction - which produces both diesel and jet fuel —-is a specific cut of the barrel, roughly the 155–360°C boiling range. Medium-gravity crudes yield a larger proportion of this middle distillate cut per barrel than either very light crudes (which produce more naphtha and gasoline fractions) or very heavy crudes (which produce more vacuum gas oil and residual fuel oil). A medium-gravity sour crude like Arab Light yields approximately 30–35% of its barrel as middle distillates.
Naphthenic and paraffinic character compatible with distillate quality. Medium sour Gulf crudes tend to have a molecular composition in the middle distillate cut that, once hydrotreated to remove sulfur, produces diesel with good cetane numbers and jet fuel with acceptable freeze points without excessive additional processing. Once the sour crude in the SPR is exhausted, the US does not have an alternative supply - i.e., the US is dependent on sour crude imports.
Although Trump signed the MoU with Iran in order to get the sour crude flowing again - note that JD Vance admitted in an interview with the Daily Wire on Wednesday that the only reason the US signed the MoU was to rebuild US reserves - the oil coming out of the Persian Gulf is not heading to the US. According to Reuters: "Saudi Aramco, opens new tab resumed loadings from Ras Tanura, the world’s largest oil port, on Friday after a halt of nearly four months. The Saudi national oil company is ramping up loadings and shipments to Asia, adding to a prompt glut that has depressed Brent crude to about $70 a barrel from close to $120 in March following the interim U.S.-Iran peace deal.
In addition to using its Bahri tanker fleet to deliver the cargoes, the world’s top oil exporter offered the crude to its Asian customers on a spot pricing basis to attract demand as competition among suppliers heats up, said several trade sources who declined to be named due to the sensitivity of the matter."
At least five supertankers carrying a total 10 million barrels of Saudi oil loaded from Ras Tanura have exited the Strait of Hormuz […] Two of the five very large crude carriers that have left the strait are heading to Japan, while another two are making their way to China. Even if a convoy of tankers left the Persian Gulf on Friday heading to the US, the voyage will take at least 42 days, which means that the US will be in a serious deficit of sour crude from 12 July until 23 August at the earliest. During that period we are likely to see the price of diesel and aviation fuel increase dramatically. Now do you understand why Trump signed the MoU with Iran?
With respect to growing tensions between Russia and NATO, a Russian military ship, which was escorting a sanctioned tanker, collided with a German coast guard vessel in the Baltic Sea on Tuesday, according to the Finnish newspaper Iltalehti. Collided is probably a translation exaggeration… The two vessels did not actually physically come in contact.
The Kira K tanker, which is under sanctions, was transporting oil through the Fehmarn Sound strait. A German coast guard ship, the Bayeruth, began approaching it. However, the Russian corvette “Sobrazitelny” approached from the east at high speed and announced: “This is the Russian military ship 531, stay away from the Kira K.” After this, the German vessel retreated, and the tanker continued its journey towards the Danish Straits. I think it is only a matter of time before incidents like this escalate into a full shooting war between Russia and the NATO states."
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