Authored by Tsvetana Paraskova via OilPrice.com,
Qatar and Kuwait have managed to boost their crude oil exports from the Strait of Hormuz to 70% of pre-war levels as they followed the United Arab Emirates in shuttling oil through the chokepoint and using ship-to-ship transfers in the Gulf of Oman, anonymous traders told Bloomberg on Thursday.
Before the Middle East conflict, Qatar and Kuwait collectively exported about 2 million barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil via the Strait of Hormuz.
They don't have alternative routes as Saudi Arabia and the UAE do, and struggled to ship oil out of the Persian Gulf in the first couple of months of the conflict.
But around June, Kuwait and Qatar began shuttling crude out of Hormuz and offered it for transfers outside the chokepoint in the Gulf of Oman.
The increasing Kuwaiti and Qatari oil volumes add to the barrels that Saudi Arabia and the UAE have been sneaking through the Strait of Hormuz and on routes bypassing it since the start of the war.
The UAE has managed to boost its oil exports to pre-crisis levels as early as June, as it has kept pushing crude through the Strait