6 Oil and Tanker Stocks Built for a Blocked Strait of Hormuz

By AltIndex Research · 11 min read · July 8, 9:44 am

The US has struck Iran on consecutive days and reimposed oil sanctions after tankers were attacked near the Strait of Hormuz, and President Trump has now declared the ceasefire over. In January we flagged the classic risk-off basket before the war started. This time the opportunity looks different: six stocks with buy-range AI Scores that benefit from oil that can't move.

Chartering a tanker to carry oil from outside the Strait of Hormuz to Asia currently costs around $4 to $5 million. Chartering one to carry oil from inside the strait costs $8 to $10 million. That doubling is the entire investment thesis of this article in one number: the world's most important oil chokepoint now carries a war premium, and someone collects it on every voyage.

The premium is back in force. The US and Iran signed the Islamabad Memorandum on June 18, and for three weeks oil flowed again, though traffic stayed well below prewar levels. That arrangement has now collapsed. After Iran attacked commercial tankers in the strait, the US struck more than 80 Iranian targets and reimposed sanctions on Iranian oil sales, and on July 8, speaking at the NATO summit in Ankara, President Trump declared the ceasefire "over" and ordered strikes for a second consecutive day. He threatened to reimpose the naval blockade and to seize Kharg Island, Iran's main crude export terminal. Iran warned it will close the strait entirely if attacked again. Brent crude jumped to $78.02 and US crude to $73.52.

What We Flagged in January, and What Happened Next

We published our first Iran article on January 14, six weeks before the first missile flew. The basket was the classic risk-off playbook: ExxonMobil, Chevron, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, plus gold, silver, and Bitcoin. When US and Israeli strikes hit Iran on February 28 and the IRGC warned that no ships would pass through the strait, that playbook worked exactly as designed.

ExxonMobil rose as much as 34% from our article to its late-March peak and still holds a 14.1% gain today. Chevron peaked 29% higher and is up 9.0% today. The defense names tell a different story. Lockheed Martin gained 24% into early March, then gave nearly all of it back and now sits fractionally below where we flagged it. Northrop Grumman round-tripped a 22% rally into a 10.9% loss.

By the end of March, all four traded above our January entry, lifted together by the run-up into the war. The paths split only afterward, energy holding its gains while defense round-tripped.

Stock Price Data

The fear trade deflated, the supply problem didn't. Air campaigns end and defense stocks mean-revert, but the strait is still running at a third of capacity five months later. The follow-up trade sits in the physical oil supply chain, not in fear itself.

The Trade Has Changed

Three numbers define the current setup. The US Strategic Petroleum Reserve has been drawn down 23% since the war broke out, to 319.5 million barrels, its lowest level since the reserve began filling in 1983. Commercial stockpiles at Cushing, Oklahoma sit below 20 million barrels, the level at which the hub struggles to pipe crude to refineries. And roughly 60 million barrels of Iranian oil sitting in the Gulf were re-sanctioned this week, with buyers given just 10 days to take delivery before the crude goes off-limits again.

Empty reserves have to be refilled, stranded barrels have to be replaced, and every replacement barrel comes from somewhere outside the Persian Gulf, on a ship that charges double. The six stocks below map directly onto that chain: non-Gulf production, the pipes that move it, the gas that substitutes for it, and the tankers that carry it. All six carry an AI Score of 65 or higher, in our buy range.

Texas Pacific Land (TPL): The Permian Without the Drill Bit

Texas Pacific Land owns royalty interests across a vast stretch of the Permian Basin and collects a cut of the oil and water revenue generated on its land without spending a dollar on drilling. When crude prices rise, the upside flows almost straight to the bottom line. The market understood this quickly in February: TPL ran 69% from our January article to its March peak above $525, pulled back to the mid-$350s during the June peace interlude, and has rallied 12% in the three weeks since the ceasefire started fraying.

TPL's AI Score of 73 is the highest in this basket, and the fundamentals explain why. Q1 revenue came in at $236.8 million, up 20.8% year over year, with EPS of $2.07 beating the $1.97 estimate. Employees rate the company a perfect 100 in our workplace review data, a signal we rarely see at any company, let alone one in the oil patch.

Petrobras (PBR): Oil That Never Sees the Strait

Brazil's deepwater pre-salt fields are about as far from Iranian anti-ship missiles as oil production gets. Every barrel Petrobras pumps earns the global risk premium without paying the strait's insurance and freight costs. The stock is up 42.5% since our January article, and even after pulling back more than 20% from its May peak, it trades at just 5.2 times earnings with an 18.6% dividend yield, both the cheapest and the highest-yielding profile in this group.

Petrobras carries an AI Score of 71 on $25.2 billion in quarterly revenue and $3.4 billion in net income, and employees rate the company 92 out of 100 in our review data. The counterweight is political: the Brazilian government is the controlling shareholder and has a history of leaning on fuel pricing and dividend policy. That overhang is why the stock trades at 5 times earnings while US peers trade at 10 or more. Investors are being paid, through a cheap multiple and an 18.6% yield, to accept government interference risk.

Kinder Morgan (KMI): The Pipes Congress Bought Before the War

Kinder Morgan operates one of the largest natural gas pipeline networks in North America, including systems that feed the Gulf Coast LNG terminals now working overtime. Members of Congress reported two separate purchases of KMI in February, on the 10th and the 19th, days before the war broke out on February 28. You can follow that activity yourself on our KMI congressional trading page.

The operating data backs the trade up. KMI's AI Score sits at 69 and Q1 EPS of $0.48 beat estimates by 23%. The hiring signal is the standout: weekly job postings dipped below 130 in late May, then more than doubled to nearly 300 by early July, the steepest hiring acceleration of any stock in this basket. LinkedIn headcount tells the same story in slow motion, climbing from 9,025 employees in January to 9,312 today without a single down reading. Companies do not add staff at that pace to maintain existing pipes. The stock is up 23.4% since our January article and pays a 3.7% dividend while you wait.

AltIndex Job Postings and LinkedIn Employee Data

EQT (EQT): The Gas Behind America's LNG Moment

Qatari LNG transits the Strait of Hormuz, and one of the tankers attacked this week was Qatari. Every cargo that can't leave the Gulf is a cargo someone in Asia or Europe tries to replace with US LNG, and EQT, America's largest natural gas producer, sits at the start of that supply chain. Q1 was a blowout: EPS of $2.33 crushed the $1.36 estimate by 71%, on revenue of $3.38 billion, up 39.7% year over year.

Here is the anomaly: despite those numbers, the stock is up just 1.6% since our January article, making it the only name in this basket that has not repriced. EQT's AI Score of 69 reflects that gap between performance and price. A member of Congress reported buying EQT on June 1, during the ceasefire lull, adding to a pattern that includes a $33,000 purchase last October, visible on our EQT congressional trading page. Job postings are up 19.4% month over month and employees rate the company 92 out of 100.

Occidental Petroleum (OXY): Insiders Bought the Dip

Occidental jumped 5.7% today, the biggest single-day move in this basket, and the insider tape suggests some people positioned early. On June 23, with the stock at $52.38 and the ceasefire still nominally holding, company president Richard Jackson bought 4,770 shares, roughly $250,000 of open-market buying. Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway has been a repeat buyer at similar levels going back to late 2024. Both are visible on our OXY insider transactions page.

The structural angle is the SPR. A reserve drawn down 23% will need years of buying to refill, and the US government refills it with domestic crude, a standing bid under large Permian producers like Occidental. OXY's AI Score of 67 rests on Q1 EPS of $1.06 against a $0.59 estimate and job postings up 15.6% month over month. The weak link is valuation: at 66 times trailing earnings, OXY is priced for the recovery it is now getting, and a durable peace would hit it harder than the others.

TORM (TRMD): Getting Paid for the World's Riskiest Shipping Lane

TORM is a Danish product tanker company, and product tankers are where the doubled freight rates from the top of this article land as revenue. The stock is up 33.1% since our January article and 10% in the past week alone as the tanker attacks pushed risk premiums back up. At 8.3 times earnings with a 10% dividend yield, the market is pricing elevated rates as temporary. Every week the strait stays disrupted is a week that pricing is wrong.

TORM's AI Score of 65 is the lowest of the six, and the insider data explains part of the discount: CEO Jacob Meldgaard sold roughly 549,000 shares in mid-May, over $17 million near the stock's peak. That is a real yellow flag worth weighing against the freight math, and you can track any follow-up sales on our TRMD insider transactions page.

The Six at a Glance

The Bottom Line

In January, the trade was fear, and it lasted as long as the headlines did. In July, the trade is logistics: empty reserves, stranded barrels, and $10 million tanker charters. Those imbalances take quarters to resolve even if the shooting stops tomorrow. The six names above are how we would express that view, ranked by AI Score, and we will keep tracking every one of them as the situation develops.

Disclosure: This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute investment advice. AltIndex aggregates publicly available alternative data signals. Past signal performance does not guarantee future results. Always do your own due diligence before making investment decisions.