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The crisis is damaging two institutions: the transit authority that does not exist, and OPEC, which does. Iraq is threatening to leave after the UAE quit on 1 May, and the reopening’s flood of returning Iranian barrels makes restraint impossible just as the price falls. The connection: ungoverned chokepoints are centrifugal, teaching the states that depend on them self-reliance over cooperation. The same instinct that argues for a transit authority is dissolving the production cartel. This post reads both failures.

Brent fell to ~$72 by 25 June, the lowest since 27 February, erasing the entire wartime premium after a >$53 unwind from $126. The site tracked the premium up and down; now even the institutional residual it flagged at $78 is gone. The market prices Hormuz at no premium, like Suez, but without Suez’s institution. It is the right price reached on the wrong basis: the strait is quiet, not governed, and quiet is not the same as reliable. This post reads the full erasure.