Conflict macros sleeve — VLO/PSX/MP last prices, Nov 10 REE date, Hormuz gate, banking pincer

Generated by Grok Bot research on 2026-08-27. WebSearch + fetch ladder + native X attempt. Treat as raw material — review before promoting. This pass is last-price + empty Gage + two dated questions. No paper sleeve. No buy / sell / size. Do not rewrite Q2 grain on valero.md, phillips-66.md, or mp-materials.md.

Summary

Thursday 27 Aug 2026 4:00 PM EDT closes from stockanalysis: VLO $346.59, PSX $239.81, MP $59.03. Gage slots stay empty. China's MOFCOM Announcement No. 70 (7 Nov 2025) confirms the pause of the October 2025 REE / overseas-REE package (Announcements 55–58, 61, 62), including the extraterritorial overseas-items rule (No. 61), until 10 Nov 2026 — wiki "November 10" is now confirmed, not merely listed. Hormuz reopen is not dated: AFP (26 Aug) has Tehran saying the strait stays closed pending US war/blockade conditions; EIA's 11 Aug STEO assumes severe constraint through August and a slow rise from September, not a reopen date. Share-war phase of uae-opec-exit-to-oil-market-share-war remains a hypothesis — not a live long, no ticker. Banking pincer: KEEP-AS-STALE. Hengli Dalian is still SDN; Zhejiang Petrochemical and Rongsheng are not on the retrieved SDN file; no Chinese big-four bank is designated; Aug 24 Operation Economic Outcast hit intermediaries and vessels, not a named dual-system pincer.

Findings

Last prices (Thursday 27 Aug 2026, 4:00 PM EDT close)

Fetched from stockanalysis. Label is last-price as-of, not Gage. Gage columns stay empty. Do not fill Gage, do not invent a range, do not copy a prior Gage. No buy / sell / size. Q2 facts on the entity pages are not restated here.

After-hours prints on those same pages (not used): VLO 346.00 at 7:53 PM EDT; PSX 241.00 at 7:50 PM EDT; MP 58.65 at 7:59 PM EDT.

Sleeve context only (no mechanism rewrite): refining-bottleneck-to-refiner-crack-capture (VLO) and venezuelan-heavy-sour-return-to-usgc-coker-differential-capture (VLO/PSX; MPC opts out) stay current. china-ree-controls-to-us-producer-stack and drone-warfare-demand-to-mp-hree-rerate stay current. USAR / CRML were not named on a fetched primary this pass and are not minted.

Nov 2026 REE extraterritorial date — listed vs confirmed

Wiki listed: "November 10, 2026 China export-control deadline" / "China's APEC-paused extraterritorial export controls expire November 10, 2026" (on mp-materials.md and question china-rare-earth-november-2026-deadline). Treat that line as listed until a primary is fetched.

Confirmed (fetched primary): MOFCOM / GACC Announcement No. 70 of 2025 (发布日期 2025年11月07日; 时效状态：现行有效) states, in full operative text: 「经批准，自即日起至2026年11月10日，商务部、海关总署公告2025年第55号、56号、57号、58号，及商务部公告2025年第61号、62号暂停实施。」 Pause runs from 7 Nov 2025 through 10 Nov 2026. The paused set includes No. 61 (海外稀土相关物项 / overseas rare-earth-related items — the extraterritorial piece) and No. 62 (稀土相关技术). No later MOFCOM notice extending or withdrawing No. 70 was fetched this pass.

Label for the filer: Nov 10 2026 is CONFIRMED (MOFCOM No. 70), matching the wiki's listed date. Do not treat encyclopedia or the wiki line as the source. Announcement 72 / a possible 27 Nov 2026 dual-use pause was not fetched and is not dated here.

Hormuz reopen gate — not dated

Mechanism uae-opec-exit-to-oil-market-share-war (created 2026-05-21, updated 2026-07-17) Step 4 is "when Hormuz reopens." This pass does not treat that as a live long and does not invent a ticker.

Reopen date: not dated. No fetched first-party or official/wire page prints a calendar date on which the strait fully reopens.

• France24 reprint of AFP, issued 26 Aug 2026 07:15: Iran and Oman discussed a "joint temporary navigational corridor" and a mine-clearing project. Deputy FM Kazem Gharibabadi (via IRNA): the strait was closed before the US economic blockade; "Before any action is taken to reopen the Strait of Hormuz, the United States must fully implement all of the commitments it has violated" (end the war, lift the blockade, Yemen). Omani FM hoped to "soon announce" a temporary corridor — not a dated reopen. AFP: traffic "remains largely paralysed" nearly six months into the war.
• EIA STEO, release date 11 Aug 2026 (HTML retrieved via curl after WebFetch timeout on the global-oil chapter) and the 11 Aug press release: EIA "assume[s] [severe] constraints on Strait of Hormuz transits … persist through August." Most regional crude "return to near pre-conflict averages in early 2027"; ~0.6 mb/d disruptions "through the end of next year." That is a forecast assumption, not a reopen date.

Share-war phase: still a hypothesis. July 13 Johnston flow / prompt-contango color is already on the mechanism (MoU jailbreak, not a durable reopen) and is not re-flattened here. Alhajji "no price war" remains untested until a dated reopen. Step 4 has not fired.

US–China banking-sanctions pincer — KEEP-AS-STALE

Mechanism us-china-banking-sanctions-pincer (created/updated 2026-05-23, stale, no ticker). Question this pass: did OFAC add Zhejiang / Rongsheng, sanction a Chinese bank, or name a pincered firm since May?

Hengli still listed; Zhejiang / Rongsheng / big-four banks not added.

• OFAC recent actions 2026-04-24: HENGLI PETROCHEMICAL DALIAN REFINERY CO., LTD. added under IRAN-EO13902; GL V issued for wind-down. Zhejiang Petrochemical and Rongsheng are not on that add list.
• OFAC recent actions 2026-08-24 and Treasury sb0613, 24 Aug 2026 (Operation Economic Outcast): ~60 entities / individuals / vessels — China/HK procurement and shipping intermediaries, shadow-fleet brokers, Shamkhani-linked Wellbred, vessels. No Zhejiang Petrochemical. No Rongsheng. No ICBC / Bank of China / CCB / ABC. Bessent's text is a threat ("Any entity that facilitates money laundering or sanctions evasion on behalf of Iran risks being cut off") plus expanded E.O. 13902 sectoral determinations (digital assets, technology, gold, aviation, shipping) — not a designation of a Chinese bank.
• OFAC SDN CSV retrieved 2026-08-27 ET: Hengli Dalian still present (uid 57454, IRAN-EO13902). String scan: ZHEJIANG PETRO = 0, RONGSHENG = 0, INDUSTRIAL AND COMMERCIAL BANK OF CHINA = 0, BANK OF CHINA = 0, CHINA CONSTRUCTION BANK = 0, AGRICULTURAL BANK OF CHINA = 0.

Named pincer event: none on the fetched primaries. No dual-system firm is forced to pick USD vs RMB. Do not flatten the May Columbia Energy Exchange podcast as new grain.

Recommendation: KEEP-AS-STALE (not REFRESH as active; not KILL). Kill tests fail: Hengli remains SDN; Hormuz remains closed / not dated-open; Outcast expands the legal perimeter rather than withdrawing it. Conversion tests also fail: 24 Aug is a post-May primary, but it does not name Zhejiang, Rongsheng, a Chinese USD-clearing bank, or a pincered dual-system firm. Re-promote only on a named pick-your-system primary, a bank/CAPTA hit, or a Zhejiang/Rongsheng SDN. No ticker.

Contradictions and open questions

• Nov 10 confirmed vs Announcement 72. No. 70 confirms 10 Nov 2026 for the Oct 2025 REE / overseas-REE package. A separate Nov 27 2026 dual-use pause (Announcement 72 / No. 46 of 2024) appeared in search and was not fetched — do not date it from a snippet.
• Hormuz "open" vs "closed." CENTCOM escort tallies and AIS/Kpler counts were not re-fetched this pass. Load-bearing here is AFP 26 Aug (Iran: still closed; no reopen date) + EIA 11 Aug (constrained through August; early-2027 recovery assumption). Do not collapse those to a reopen date.
• EIA 4.9 mb/d 2Q26 Hormuz figure appeared in search snippets of the global-oil chapter; that chapter timed out on WebFetch and was not retrieved. Do not cite 4.9 from this clip.
• Empty Gage. No range is computed.
• USAR / CRML. Not named on a fetched primary this pass. Stay thin; do not mint.

Provenance

Method: Grok Bot / WebSearch / fetch ladder (WebFetch, then curl) / native X attempt. Parallel skills not used. Vault /autoresearch not run. Encyclopedia / wiki not used as a source for contested dates. Grokipedia not used. Generated: 2026-08-27 Rounds: 3 of 3 URLs fetched: 11 successful, 1 HTML timeout (EIA global-oil chapter), native X 0 (client-not-enrolled) X sources: none found Grokipedia: not used

Web sources:

• stockanalysis VLO — Thu 27 Aug 2026 4:00 PM EDT close $346.59
• stockanalysis PSX — Thu 27 Aug 2026 4:00 PM EDT close $239.81
• stockanalysis MP — Thu 27 Aug 2026 4:00 PM EDT close $59.03
• MOFCOM / GACC Announcement No. 70 of 2025 — pause of Announcements 55–58, 61, 62 through 10 Nov 2026
• France24 / AFP, 26 Aug 2026 — Iran: Hormuz still closed; corridor talks; no calendar reopen
• EIA STEO — 11 Aug 2026; assumes Hormuz constraint through August; early-2027 recovery is an assumption
• EIA press release, 11 Aug 2026 — same STEO print
• OFAC recent actions 2026-04-24 — Hengli Petrochemical Dalian added under IRAN-EO13902
• OFAC recent actions 2026-08-24 — Operation Economic Outcast add list
• Treasury sb0613, 24 Aug 2026 — Outcast intermediaries/vessels; Bessent threat, not a Chinese-bank designation
• OFAC SDN CSV — retrieved 2026-08-27 ET; Hengli uid 57454; Zhejiang/Rongsheng/big-four string-scan zero

X sources:

• none found — native X client-not-enrolled

Grokipedia:

• not used