World's Top Crude Trader Isn't Ruling Out $200 Oil Just Yet

OilPrice.com · Tsvetana Paraskova · 2026-10-09 00:00 UTC

Vitol warns oil could surge to $200 per barrel if ship-to-ship transfers near the Strait of Hormuz are disrupted, threatening vital Middle Eastern oil exports.

Ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman that keep oil flowing from the Middle East provide a lifeline to Gulf producers and to the oil market, according to Russell Hardy, chief executive officer at the world’s biggest independent oil trader, Vitol Group.

“Without it, you do have that $200-a-barrel scenario, so it is pretty important it continues,” Hardy said at the Energy Intelligence Forum in London this week. “There aren’t any more inventories to drain in the West.”

The ship-to-ship (STS) transfers, in which smaller vessels pick up oil to transit the Strait of Hormuz and then reload the cargo onto larger tankers in the Gulf of Oman, have soared in recent weeks. Some estimates put oil flows out of the Strait of Hormuz at or above the pre-war levels of around 20 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil and products leaving the Persian Gulf.

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