Iranian oil is disappearing from the market just as its biggest buyer returns for more. China’s recovering crude demand is colliding with the loss of a supplier that sustained its independent refiners through the crisis, forcing them to compete for increasingly expensive alternatives.
The consequences reach beyond China: every replacement barrel tightens supplies for other buyers, while Tehran faces a growing incentive to disrupt the Strait of Hormuz, which is now carrying an unexpectedly strong 13 million barrels a day (just 5 million below…