The vice president described the ceasefire as a window to "refill the world's oil economy" and see where things stand in 60 days. The math behind that plan doesn't survive a calculator…
Philip Pilkington ran the numbers.
Around 150 ships a day moved through Hormuz before the war.
Five months of closure left a hole of THOUSANDS of transits, and today's trickle of a dozen-odd ships doesn't begin to fill it.
You can print money, he kept repeating, but you can't print oil.
Which is why he thinks the cheerful price on your screen is a mirage.
Futures have been crushed toward $70, yet the crack spread, the real cost refiners eat and pass to the pump, still behaves like oil trades near $100-110. Pump prices barely budged.
In his world, energy traders look at that gap the way you'd look at a magic trick you've already figured out.
His most provocative guess, offered as exactly that, is that China is quietly draining its massive reserves to cover America's shortfall through the 60-day window, and won't do it forever.
He also flagged a Financial Times report on trading activity tied to Trump's orbit, thousands of trades this term.
His concern wasn't any individual profiting, and he stressed he wasn't accusing the administration of trading for gain.
It's the culture: a Washington that starts thinking like day traders ends up running foreign policy on the same short-term clock.
Then, LIVE on air, Bloomberg dropped a headline that made both of us sit up: European nations now consider Iranian fees on Hormuz INEVITABLE, and are just asking Tehran not to discriminate between vessels.
The roadrunner is off the cliff, he says. It just hasn't looked down. @philippilk
