The Oil Buffer Is Running Out: Hormuz Closure Drains Reserves to 1982 Lows
How much oil-market buffer is left?
The Depletion Ledger tracks the oil supply crisis since the US-Israel war with Iran began in February 2026. With the Strait of Hormuz and Red Sea effectively closed, roughly 20% of global oil supply is cut off. Brent is up 40%, US diesel hit a record $6.27, and the Strategic Petroleum Reserve has fallen to 285.4 million barrels—its lowest since 1982. The model estimates how long stored oil can last under three scenarios and logs its predictions.
The world has been using more oil than it produces.
- indemnity
Happy we made the switch to all EVs + solar this year. Knock on effects on the economy are going to be brutal though.
- dgudkov
Off-topic: what a well designed infographics. Clean, easy to read, great layout. A very good job!
- geoffbp
Code for the site: https://github.com/mattcone/depletion-ledger
- bix6
Can anyone speak to the long term impacts of this? Like is gas going to remain high for years (or even worse get rationed) and I should trade in for an EV now?
- CrzyLngPwd
It's like a catalogue of US misadventures and ego.
- thefourthchime
I like that no one is immediately jumping on this website for being AI generated.
Of course most of it is, but it looks like the author put some care into this. It doesn't seem like a one off slop from Astra or anything.
Actually my favorite part is on the very bottom. The author attributes Qwen running on his local computer.
"Built with help from a local AI (Qwen 3.8-27b) running on an HP Omen 30L (RTX 3090) in my office."
- Sabinus
The amount of times "global commodity" was explained in this comment section was interesting.
- formerly_proven
The real question is how quickly demand can be destroyed.