China's crude imports snapped back in July. The number that tells us whether demand did is still missing.

For two months the most important missing number in the oil market has been China's next move. June's crude imports had collapsed to their lowest level in nearly a decade, leaving three plausible readings: weakening demand, a deliberate buyer strike, or constrained supply. On Friday the official July figure landed, and it shows Chinese crude imports rebounding 22 percent from June. That makes June much harder to read as clean evidence of structural erosion. It does not yet tell us why the barrels returned. The refinery run rate, still unpublished, will show whether they moved through plants or accumulated in tanks, and the full read is below the wall.

The war produced the opposite kind of news. A week ago, reporting had Washington and Tehran within reach of a deal. The week ran out this weekend with nothing signed, and Iran's Revolutionary Guard declared that reopening the Strait of Hormuz "has nothing to do with" the shipping arrangement Iran is finalizing with Oman. The route deal the market has been watching may not be the door out. A tanker was reported struck by missile fire in the strait on Saturday.

No market has traded any of this. Oil futures and US equities have been shut since Friday's close, so every price in this issue is a Friday number carried across the weekend, and Monday's open casts the first vote.

For paying subscribers below: the full regime dashboard, data, and mapped sources. Inside: the July China print against three competing readings; the refinery number that separates processing from storage; the Hormuz incident clock reset by Saturday's tanker strike; Friday's closes against every registered marker; and the correction that keeps our Brent-curve count honest.