The US Treasury Department revoked the OFAC general license that had permitted Iranian oil sales since the June 17 ceasefire — a 10-day wind-down period with payments into a blocked US account as the only exit — in direct response to Iranian attacks on three commercial vessels in the Strait of Hormuz on Monday night and Tuesday morning [1]. US crude rose nearly 3 percent to $70.44 per barrel; Brent rose about 3 percent to $74.16. Extended trading moved modestly higher after the US strikes were announced. [1][3]

The paper tracked Hormuz yesterday at roughly one-third of pre-war transit volume, with war-risk insurance premiums at 12 to 16 times pre-war baseline and a shrinking MOU window. Today adds four new variables: the ceasefire has broken; new tanker attacks have occurred; the US sanctions waiver has been revoked; and oil prices have moved about 3 percent in a single session. The compound instruments established by the June interim deal have fired simultaneously in reverse.

The structure of Tuesday's event is what most commodity coverage misses. The June 17 Memorandum of Understanding did not simply pause the shooting. It linked two instruments: a US authorization for Iranian oil sales to global markets, and an Iranian commitment to safe commercial passage through the Strait of Hormuz. Those two instruments were designed to be conditional on each other. When Iranian forces attacked a Qatari LNG tanker, an oil supertanker, and a third commercial vessel near Hormuz — the Joint Maritime Information Center confirmed all three were hit — they triggered both sides of that bilateral compact simultaneously [2].

Revoking the oil waiver does not stand alone as a sanction. It collapses the energy-market and transit assumptions established by the ceasefire in one announcement. The US Treasury's action — which Javier Blas at Bloomberg had documented as a broad license covering crude, refined products, petrochemicals, shipping, and ancillary services — now runs on a 10-day clock toward a full reimposition of pre-ceasefire oil sanctions [1].

The Hormuz transit number — approximately one-third of the pre-war baseline — is the paper's operating receipt for what "the Strait is open" actually means. Before the war, the Strait handled roughly 20% of the world's daily oil supply. At one-third transit, the effective chokepoint rate is not one-third of 20%; it is a compound of reduced volume, heightened war-risk premiums, and the routing decisions of individual shipping operators weighing those premiums against available alternatives. The Saudi Red Sea route and the UAE pipeline bypass are partially absorbing the shortfall; neither is built to absorb a full Hormuz closure [3].

Energy markets on Tuesday priced in the compound reset, not just the military event. The roughly 3% WTI move reflected traders calculating: resumed US strikes, revoked oil waiver, Hormuz at one-third, no safe-channel map in the public record, 12-16x war-risk premiums still in place. Any one of those factors alone would move crude modestly. All four together, on the same morning, produce a directional signal the market read as unambiguous.

Iran's response to the waiver revocation and CENTCOM strikes has not been published as of Tuesday evening beyond the deputy foreign minister's statement calling the US actions a treaty violation. Whether Tehran signals willingness to return to the Doha negotiating table — or whether Tuesday represents a permanent break in the June framework — is the open question. The 10-day wind-down period is not a negotiation; it is a countdown [2].

The paper's standard: track operating conditions, not adjectives. "Hormuz is open" is a sentence. "Hormuz is at one-third transit with one-third of normal war-risk insurance and no published safe-channel map" is a receipt. The ceasefire provided the first sentence. The receipts, across both editions, have told a different story. Tuesday updated both numbers.

-- THEO KAPLAN, San Francisco