Crude oil prices fell rapidly after the news of a temporary ceasefire in the Strait of Hormuz, with WTI and Brent crude dropping about 1% in a single day and accumulating a nearly 16% decline in June. However, for the textile industry, this does not mean that the procurement cost of chemical fiber raw materials has entered a downward channel.
The Real Bottleneck Behind the Ceasefire
As of June 23, industry public data shows that only tankers with traceable AIS signals—162 fully loaded crude oil tankers—are stranded in the Strait of Hormuz and surrounding waters, carrying approximately 120 million barrels of crude oil. More alarmingly, a large number of Iran-linked tankers and small-to-medium-sized product tankers have actively turned off their positioning signals, becoming what the industry calls "dark ships," meaning the actual stranded volume is much higher than statistics suggest.
Currently, the daily number of vessels transiting the strait is still less than 60% of pre-conflict levels. Shipowners generally adopt a tentative re-entry strategy rather than large-scale concentrated navigation. This congestion stalemate of "able to go but afraid to go, wanting to go but queuing" makes it difficult to quickly digest months of accumulated capacity. For the textile industry, this means significant uncertainty remains in the supply rhythm of crude oil and basic chemical raw materials like naphtha.
High War Risk Insurance Premiums, Cost Transmission Chain Unbroken
The increase in insurance costs due to geopolitical conflicts is the core pain point restricting the full recovery of shipping. Although the war risk insurance premium rate in the strait has fallen from its conflict peak, it remains at a high level of 1% of the vessel's hull value, 10 times higher than the pre-conflict rate of 0.1%. For a mainstream VLCC, the war risk insurance premium for a single transit of the Strait of Hormuz is as high as $2 million.
This cost directly pushes up the total cost of crude oil transportation, thereby affecting the landed prices of downstream chemical fiber raw materials such as PX, PTA, and MEG. For textile enterprises that primarily use polyester filament and polyester staple fiber, as long as war risk insurance rates cannot return to normal, the procurement cost of raw materials will be difficult to truly stabilize.
Fragility of Oil Price Correction: Textile Enterprises Should Beware of Sentiment Traps
Multiple institutional analysts have clearly pointed out that the current oil price correction is more about short-term sentiment release than a fundamental reversal. Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Lee Klaskow noted that the 60-day temporary ceasefire agreement is extremely unstable, with fundamental differences among parties in the Middle East remaining unresolved, and the geopolitical situation could deteriorate at any time.
From a pricing logic perspective, the recent decline in the crude oil market has already priced in the short-term benefits of navigation recovery. If there is a sudden incident such as an attack on a vessel, channel control, or escalation of diplomatic conflicts in the strait, the rhythm of exporting accumulated crude oil will be interrupted again, and the risk premium will quickly rise again. This means that if textile enterprises judge the medium-to-long-term procurement cost of chemical fiber raw materials solely based on short-term oil price drops, they may face a passive situation when prices rebound.
Transmission Path and Time Lag to the Textile Industry Chain
The transmission of crude oil price changes to the textile raw material end usually takes 2-4 weeks. The current oil price decline mainly affects the sentiment of futures markets such as PTA and MEG, while actual spot price adjustments still need to be observed. Major weaving clusters such as Shengze and Keqiao have not yet seen significant fluctuations in grey fabric and finished fabric prices, and downstream dyeing and printing enterprises are mostly adopting a wait-and-see attitude.
It is worth noting that the current global crude oil transportation turnover efficiency continues to be impaired. Some small and medium-sized shipowners choose to bypass the Cape of Good Hope to avoid strait risks, lengthening voyages and increasing fuel and labor costs; leading shipping companies only deploy a small number of vessels for trial transits, unwilling to dispatch large-scale capacity into the Persian Gulf. This structural inefficiency means that even if the ceasefire agreement is extended, the recovery of crude oil and chemical product supply will take longer.