أسواق الطاقة العالمية على صفيح ساخن: النفط والغاز والدولار في صعود متزامن

مباشر- ارتفع الدولار الأمريكي اليوم الأربعاء، مع عودة المخاوف التضخمية وسط ارتفاع أسعار النفط. ولم تُسهم بيانات مؤشر تضخم أسعار المستهلكين الأمريكي، التي جائت متوافقة مع التوقعات السابقة، في تعزيز احتمالات خفض مجلس الاحتياطي الفيدرالي أسعار الفائدة. وصعد مؤشر الدولار الأمريكي، الذي يقيس أداء العملة الأمريكية مقابل سلة من ست عملات رئيسية، بنسبة 0.4% إلى 99.22. وانخفض اليورو بنسبة 0.3% إلى 1.1570، في حين استقر الجنيه الإسترليني عند 1.3416. ارتفعت أسعار النفط اليوم الأربعاء مع استمرار تصاعد التوتر في إيران. ولم يُسهم سحب وكالة الطاقة الدولية لـ 400 مليون برميل من النفط من احتياطياتها الطارئة، وهو رقم قياسي، في تخفيف المخاوف من ارتفاع التضخم. وأشار محللو "آي إن جي" إلى أن سوق الصرف الأجنبي لا يزال متأثراً بشدة بالتقلبات الحادة الأخيرة في أسعار النفط. وتتجه الأنظار بشكل رئيسي إلى مضيق هرمز، الممر المائي الضيق جنوب إيران الذي يمر عبره خُمس نفط العالم، والذي يُصدّر معظمه إلى دول آسيوية. وأدت المخاوف من هجمات إيرانية إلى تكدس السفن في المضيق، إذ تسعى شركات الحاويات جاهدةً لحماية طواقمها وتواجه صعوبة في تأمين رحلاتها. وتتراوح أسعار العقود الآجلة لخام برنت، المعيار العالمي، حالياً حول 90 دولار للبرميل بعد أن قفزت إلى 120 دولار للبرميل في وقت سابق من هذا الأسبوع. كما ارتفعت أسعار البنزين في الولايات المتحدة، ما قد يضغط على التضخم ويدفع الاحتياطي الفيدرالي إلى تبني سياسة نقدية أكثر تشدداً. وقد تجذب أسعار الفائدة المرتفعة المزيد من الاستثمارات الأجنبية، ما يعزز قيمة الدولار. تأثرت أسعار النفط بشدة بسلسلة من الأخبار الواردة من الشرق الأوسط. فقد أدى تصريح وزير الطاقة الأمريكي بأن الجيش رافق ناقلة نفط عبر مضيق هرمز إلى تذبذب سعر خام برنت بين 81 و92 دولار للبرميل. وهدد الرئيس دونالد ترامب بتصعيد الهجمات الأمريكية على إيران بعد تقارير أفادت بأن طهران زرعت ألغاماً بحرية عبر مضيق هرمز في الأيام الأخيرة. وعقب تقرير لشبكة "سي إن إن" يفيد بأن إيران زرعت ألغاماً في المضيق، وإن لم يكن ذلك على نطاق واسع بعد، قال ترامب أمس الثلاثاء إن إيران ستتعرض لضربة غير مسبوقة إذا لم تقم الجمهورية الإسلامية بإزالتها. وتجاوزت خطوة وكالة الطاقة الدولية يوم الأربعاء بشكل كبير كمية النفط التي وفرتها الدول الأعضاء في الوكالة، والبالغة 182 مليون برميل، بعد الغزو الروسي لأوكرانيا عام 2022. وقال محللو "آي إن جي" إن هذه الخطوة إجراء مؤقت، مضيفين أن خفض التصعيد العسكري هو السبيل الوحيد لخفض النفط الخام بشكل مستدام. ويضيف المحللون أن خطوة وكالة الطاقة الدولية قد تُرسل إشارة خفية إلى الأسواق مفادها أن التوقعات بوقف فوري لإطلاق النار ضئيلة. ويرى محللو "آي إن جي" أن تمنع هذه الإشارات المتضاربة قد تمنع الدولار من الانخفاض أكثر اليوم ما لم تظهر أخبار مشجعة بشأن خفض التصعيد. كان تقرير مؤشر أسعار المستهلك لشهر فبراير/شباط محط الأنظار يوم الأربعاء، على الرغم من أن التقرير لا يتضمن بشكل حاسم تأثير الصراع الإيراني والارتفاع الحاد في أسعار النفط بسببه، وبالتالي فهو ينظر إلى الماضي أكثر من المعتاد.

Less than a week ago, the head of the International Energy Agency said there was “plenty of oil” in the market, and there was no need for an emergency release. This week, Fatih Birol proposed an emergency release of hundreds of millions of barrels, the largest ever. Meanwhile, the U.S. oil and gas industry seems to be in a wait-and-see mode—and it’s hard to blame them. The launch of strikes by the United States and Israel on Iran prompted retaliation that resulted in something few expected would ever happen: the effective freeze of tanker traffic in the Strait of Hormuz, meaning a fifth of global oil exports had suddenly become unavailable. Some tankers do pass the Strait – if they are Chinese-flagged or Iranian-flagged, but most Persian Gulf oil is staying in the Persian Gulf for now. Besides an emergency release from the OECD stockpiles, a response to the spike in oil and gas prices could have come from producers outside the Middle East, most obviously the United States. Most of the country’s oil comes from the shale patch, which could be ramped up and down fast, so why are they not doing it? For starters, U.S. shale oil drillers have matured significantly since the early 2000s, when they basically drilled for drilling’s sake—and for the sake of repaying their debt—just to see how much more the shale rock would yield. Those times are over. Now, shale producers are much more careful with their production plans. As Wood Mackenzie noted in a report this week, “E&Ps have so far been suggesting that they are not yet committing to increased activity, in case the higher prices prove to be temporary.” Related: Little-Known US Company Lands Important Pentagon Contract in Rare Earth Race Argus’s Stephen Cunningham also pointed out the shale industry’s corporate policy evolution over the past decade, with capital discipline taking priority over fast response to changes in market balance. Reversing that, Cunningham argued, would “require a sea change in boardroom strategy.” What’s more, the recent consolidation in the U.S. oil industry has resulted in Big Oil dominance—and Big Oil does not knee-jerk to sudden changes in oil prices resulting from severe supply disruption. Especially when its stocks are suggesting investors and traders all expect the disruption to be dealt with fast. “The market is anticipating a swift end to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz and a subsequent collapse in oil prices back to normalized levels,” the head of energy research at Melius Research told Reuters this week. “The rally in oil prices is primarily contained to near-term spot prices rather than longer-dated crude oil futures.” This explains why Big Oil shares have risen quite modestly compared to benchmark oil prices and why the industry does not really have much incentive to respond to the supply shock with more production. Instead, it could simply reap the benefits of higher prices while they last. Related: No Magnets, No Drones: How China Controls the Future of Warfare In gas, however, things are a little bit different—and more concerning for consumers. The United States is the biggest producer of natural gas and the biggest exporter of the commodity in liquefied form. Yet U.S. LNG producers are already at capacity and physically cannot boost production to respond to the gap in supply that opened when QatarEnergy shut down its production facilities. Wood Mackenzie notes that there will be new LNG capacity coming on stream later this year on the Gulf Coast, but added that this new capacity “will be only about 20% of what has been lost from the shutdown of QatarEnergy’s Ras Laffan.” And this, in turn, means that we could reasonably expect a prolonged gas squeeze in Europe and Asia, with the latter switching to coal and the former possibly forced to reconsider its ban on Russian gas. The irony in the current situation is that while U.S. producers are entirely justified in adopting the wait-and-see approach, the longer the supply disruption continues, the longer it would take to bring Middle Eastern production back online—and the longer prices would remain elevated, potentially motivating a response from the shale patch. But that response would immediately pressure prices, eliminating most of the gains shale producers could expect. Not only this, but U.S. shale drillers cannot close the oil supply gap alone, just like LNG producers cannot cover all lost Qatari supply. This should be a worrying thought because it is related to actual, physical oil supply. Indeed, Wood Mac estimated that even if oil trades at $100 per barrel over the next six months, U.S. shale drillers could only add about 600,000 bpd by the end of the year—and it is unlikely for oil to trade at $100 over a period of six months. In such a situation, the industry is doing the smartest thing for its own good. And it just got proven right as oil prices slumped to below $90 for both Brent crude and WTI after the news broke that the IEA and G7 will be discussing the largest ever emergency release of oil. By Irina Slav for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com

Drivers are paying an average of 20 percent more at the pump since the strikes on Iran began. The global oil price was higher and stocks were mixed.

The world’s top crude oil and LNG importer, China, is not as exposed and vulnerable to energy deliveries from the Middle East as one might think. China has been amassing crude volumes in storage for months, it has been working for years to diversify oil and gas supply sources and routes, and has boosted the share of transport electrification, which has reduced demand for road transportation fuels. As the Middle East crisis choked off supplies via the world’s most critical oil and gas chokepoint, the Strait of Hormuz, China is more resilient to the supply shock than other regions and countries, including Europe, India, Japan, South Korea, or Southeast Asia, analysts say. Inventory Buffer One might think that China, as the biggest crude oil importer, would feel the supply squeeze immediately and acutely. Yet, its supply buffer of an estimated 1.2-1.3 billion barrels of crude in strategic and commercial stockpiles could last up to four months, Rush Doshi, director of the China Strategy Initiative at the Council on Foreign Relations, told CNBC on Monday, when oil prices briefly hit $118 per barrel. “China has taken the last 20 years to reduce some of its dependence on maritime oil flows,” Doshi said. With pipelines and more renewable energy in the electricity mix, China depends on flows via the Strait of Hormuz for 40-50% of its seaborne crude oil imports, Doshi reckons. Moreover, China has been amassing crude in strategic and commercial reserves for nearly a year. This oil hoarding is paying off in the unpredictable and already highly disruptive war in the Middle East. Related: Little-Known US Company Lands Important Pentagon Contract in Rare Earth Race China’s energy security strategy and plan to aggressively buy cheaper crude, including sanctioned barrels, is insulating the world’s second-largest economy, to some extent, from short-lived supply disruptions. Beijing is estimated to have been amassing crude into commercial and strategic inventories for nearly a year—taking advantage of lower international prices and even lower prices for sanctioned supply out of Iran, Venezuela, and Russia. Unlike the United States, China does not report inventories. Analysts are looking at overall supply (domestic production plus imports) and refinery processing rates to estimate how much crude is going into strategic or commercial reserves and how much is being processed into fuels. Analysts estimate that China’s total reserves stand at between 1.2 billion barrels and 1.3 billion barrels. “China currently holds an estimated 1.3 billion barrels of crude in onshore storage, equivalent to around four months of seaborne imports at the 2025 average rate,” Emma Li, Lead China Oil Market Analyst at Vortexa, wrote in an analysis on Monday. Crude Flow Diversification “China’s overall crude supply system demonstrates significant resilience to a temporary disruption at the Strait of Hormuz, supported by diversified suppliers, substantial onshore inventories, and stable pipeline inflows from Russia and domestic production,” Li said. In the weeks before the war, China had reduced exposure to Strait of Hormuz crude oil flows, mostly thanks to the surge in purchases of Russian crude that doesn’t travel through the chokepoint in the Middle East. The share of China’s seaborne imports transiting the Strait of Hormuz has dropped from 39% in 2025 to about 33% now, according to Vortexa data. That’s because Chinese imports of Russian seaborne crude have jumped from around 1.2 million barrels per day in 2025 to about 1.8 million bpd now. Related: No Magnets, No Drones: How China Controls the Future of Warfare “Private Chinese refiners stepped up purchases as weaker demand from other Asian buyers created opportunities, reducing reliance on Hormuz-linked Iranian supplies,” Vortexa’s Li said. Despite being the top crude importer in the world, China is less exposed to the Hormuz crisis than many other buyers in Asia, including India and the developed economies of Japan and South Korea. India relies on the Middle East for about 60% of its crude supply, while Japan’s dependence is a massive 90%. China also continues to rely on Iranian and Russian crude, large volumes of which are already amassed in floating storage on tankers close to Chinese shores. The independent refiners in China have been and continue to be the top buyer of Iran’s crude, while China has also been opportunistically scooping up the Russian oil that India shunned for a few months under U.S. pressure, but is now back to buying, with U.S. blessing. Record volumes of nearly 40 million barrels of sanctioned Iranian, Russian, and Venezuelan crude are idling in floating storage on tankers near China. The crude volumes in floating storage, with more than three-quarters of the tankers laden with Iranian oil, have jumped by 17% compared to the week before the Middle East war started, according to Kpler data cited by Bloomberg on Monday. The proximity to China and the willingness of Chinese refiners, especially the private crude processors, to buy sanctioned crude could ease – to an extent – China’s short-term pain from spiking oil prices and halted Hormuz flows. Beijing’s vulnerability to the current supply shock varies widely across the refining sector, according to Vortexa. Refineries with heavy Hormuz-linked supply chains or with limited substitution options could be forced to accelerate maintenance schedules or reduce processing rates. “Overall, while China is unlikely to face an immediate nationwide refining disruption, a prolonged closure of the Strait of Hormuz would likely result in selective refinery run cuts, shifting crude trade flows, and tighter regional product balances across Asia,” Vortexa’s Li noted. By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com More Top Reads From Oilprice.com