JPM | Red Sea Transits Improve, Refiners Earnings This Week, Initiate on Thai Energy, O&G Ask Me Anything, Fed Hawkish Hold, CATL solid demand

Research evidence excerpt

JPM | Red Sea Transits Improve, Refiners Earnings This Week, Initiate on Thai Energy, O&G Ask Me Anything, Fed Hawkish Hold, CATL solid demand

Specialist Sales

APAC Specialist Sales J P M O R G A N

27 July 2026

JPM | Red Sea Transits Improve, Refiners Earnings This Week,

Initiate on Thai Energy, O&G Ask Me Anything, Fed Hawkish

Hold, CATL solid demand

Anmol Mehta

+852 2800 8896

anmol.mehta@jpmorgan.com

Good morning, we’ve had the first quiet weekend post 11 days of back-to-back strikes between the US & Iran as Brent hit $100/

bbl last week. Shipping volumes in the red sea have been better than expected, with Kpler noting that Bab el-Mandeb transits

having increased to 43 vessels from 35 on Thursday - which is helping keep a lid on prices and moving Brent -6% back to $91/

bbl. That being said, slack in the system is quickly running out – SPR inventories are the lowest since 1983, commercial crude

inventories are well below 5 year averages and you simply do not have much buffer left on crude or products.

This seems amplified with the refiners. Houthis weekend attacks on Saudi’s Yanbu & Jizan refineries have impacted 400kbd of

product, and US refiners are already running at 95%+ utilization rates - any sudden outage/maintenance upgrade could push

cracks even higher (Diesel at $85/bbl as of last close) – albeit conversations with several investors have moved into ’demand

destruction’ conversations.

Parsley Ong is hosting an ‘Ask me Anything on Asia Oil & Gas’ – which will discuss inventory levels across Asia, China’s

demand response, how to trade a peace deal and & the setup for Asian refiners – several of which have lagged US peers due to

fears of ‘national service. Call is at 5pm HKT on July 29th, please register here.