Executive summary. Gulf oil is getting out. Kpler counted 24.6 million b/d of crude and condensate leaving the Persian Gulf region in the week to October 18, the highest weekly figure of the war; Vortexa put the same week at 18 million. Both firms estimate pre-war flows at no less than 18.5 million b/d, Bloomberg reported on October 21. Over the same weeks, attacks on merchant ships ran at the fastest pace of the conflict.

The barrels move through an improvised network: pipelines to ports outside the Strait of Hormuz, short shuttle runs through the strait, and cargo transfers to larger ships waiting off Oman. That network is expensive. The IEA puts Gulf-to-Asia crude freight above $37 a barrel in mid-October, more than five times its pre-war level.

Our assessment: Brent's $116.72 settle on October 23 prices a volume gap that has narrowed but not closed, thin stocks and the risk that the workaround fails, and freight adds about a third on top for Asian buyers of Gulf crude. The system's weak points are few and concentrated: US naval facilitation that Iran has threatened, the transfer anchorages off the UAE, a single dominant shipowner and a Red Sea bypass under Houthi fire. Our base case, at 50%, is that the system keeps carrying volume near its October range through mid-November at a high and volatile cost. Attack counts are a poor break signal; the nodes and the owners are the ones to watch.