Citi: Oil Price Risks Skewed to Upside on Shipping Bottlenecks

The distinction Citi draws matters: this is a logistics story, not a demand story. Gulf barrels may be loading again, but bottlenecks mean the crude isn't arriving where it's needed, so the physical market stays tight even as headline export figures improve. That gap between what leaves the Gulf and what reaches refiners is the real signal, and it cuts against the assumption that recovering exports alone ease prices. The open question is whether these shipping frictions are transient or structural — that determines whether the upside skew fades or becomes the baseline.