Signal: Weekly Tanker Market Monitor  in International Shipping News 27/06/2026 T he 2026 trend (blue) sits far below its 2023–2025 range, the visible fingerprint of the wartime collapse. Flows tracked the historical norm through mid-March, fell off a cliff in the last week of March, and bottomed at 3.31M barrels on 21 May. The series has since recovered to 6.97M barrels on 24 June, but the year-to-date average of 10.68M remains about 40% below the three-year same-window average of 17.85M. West-to-East vessel count, smoothed on a 7-day moving average, tracks the prior-year range through February, then collapses to zero around 9 March when the strait closed. Transits hold near zero through May, a near-total halt of roughly eleven weeks, before turning sharply upward and reaching 4.86 on 25 June. That rebound is consistent with the loadings recovery seen in the cargo data, though transits remain about 58% below the 2023–2025 norm for the same window. Production-restoration announcements from Gulf countries Externally reported guidance based on operator and government statements. The announced increases represent the restoration of production disrupted by the conflict rather than net-new supply. Iraq: The Oil Ministry aims to raise southern crude production above 3 million bpd within one to two months. Output has already recovered from a wartime low of 1.3 million bpd to around 1.75 million bpd, with 2 million bpd expected in the near term through the gradual restart of West Qurna 1, Majnoon, and Fauqi. Kuwait: Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC) expects production to increase to 2 million bpd within one week, up from approximately 573,000 bpd during the disruption in May. Officials indicated that pre-conflict production levels could be restored within weeks, subject to the resumption of normal shipping operations. Saudi Arabia & UAE: Both countries maintained sufficient operational flexibility to restore curtailed production rapidly, while continuing to utiliz