The ledger that matters this week is a loading schedule, or, more precisely, the sum of loading schedules at terminals that do not sit inside the Strait of Hormuz. A report carried by MSN, under the headline "three reasons Middle East oil is nearly back to pre-Iran war levels," says Gulf exports have rebounded to close to their level before the war began.

The report gives the mechanism in two parts. Shuttle tankers move crude to loading points outside the strait, and pipelines that bypass it carry barrels to the coast. It adds a third element, US military assistance, which it credits as part of the reason exports recovered. The report does not supply the daily barrels, the pipeline names or the operators, and I will not supply them either.

The timing is awkward for anyone who reads the war through the oil price. A third US carrier is heading to the Middle East, per the Guardian, as American midterm elections loom. Another outlet puts the surge of US troops into the Gulf at 20,000, with Trump saying Washington faces a choice between striking Iran and reaching a deal. More force is arriving in the region at the same moment the export line is recovering, and the second fact is what makes the first affordable.

Consider who is paid for the barrels that moved. Buyers of Gulf crude have found that the strait, which was the threat, has become a routing choice with a higher freight bill. The shuttle tanker adds a leg, and the bypass pipeline caps what can be moved. Both cost money, and both are paid by the party that wants the oil delivered. Inside the war's economy, a rerouted cargo is a cost line. A closed cargo would have been a shortage.

That leaves Iran's side of the ledger. A Gulf export system that has learned to work around the strait removes a good deal of what Tehran could hope to charge for threatening it. The pressure falls on Iran's own currency, and the global oil price absorbs very little of it.

The one number to watch is the one the report leaves out, the volume the bypass routes can carry at full stretch. Until a shipper or pipeline operator publishes it, the word "nearly" in that headline carries the whole argument.