WTI crude started the week near $90 a barrel and spent the week pulled back and forth by Middle East escalation, a Gulf hurricane threat, and international reserve releases before settling back just above $90/barrel on Friday.
WTI whipsawed all week, spiking early and again midweek before falling back hard on Friday from surprise reserve releases out of Europe and the IEA.
WTI crude fell below $100/barrel this week and look to close beneath $95. We are starting to see technical levels in the crude trade, so any major event will push prices quickly back above $100 or below $90.
WTI crude touched four-month highs this week before pulling back a bit by Friday. On Monday, crude opened up more than 3%, with gasoline up 15 cents a gallon and diesel up almost 25 cents. Over the past weekend, Saudi Arabia shut down its east-west pipeline, which normally moves 7 million barrels a day and had been covering half of the crude transport lost from the strait of Hormuz closure.
Oil prices jumped 3% early Monday as the US attacked Iran’s Larak Island. The reason was that the US believed Iran was preparing to place mines back in the strait. Iran responded by launching missile attacks on US bases in Jordan. These were the first attacks since July. Iran’s president continues to say he wants a negotiated peace deal, but the details keep getting lost in translation on both sides.
Oil is ending the week right around $82 a barrel. This is down from where it started Monday. Every day brought new diplomatic signals and fresh attacks, often within hours of each other. The Iran-Oman talks over Hormuz progressed enough to move markets. So did the Houthi missile strike on a Saudi tanker near Yanbu. We are definitely still in “believe it when I see it” territory. Here is what drove the market this week.
Oil is ending the week near $84 a barrel, up about 20% for the month of July. The market swung between optimism and fear almost every single day. A pause in U.S. strikes early in the week sent prices down sharply. Then the fighting came right back, the Houthi naval blockade of Saudi Arabia got more aggressive, and oil climbed back toward where it started. The pattern of this war keeps repeating itself. Here is what drove the market this week.
Oil briefly crossed $90 a barrel on Thursday for the first time since the spring and then pulled back to close the week near $89. WTI is up nearly 40% in July alone, and this was a week that showed exactly why prices are not coming back down anytime soon. Three major supply routes went under attack simultaneously.
Oil is ending the week around $85 a barrel, up more than 20% from where it started Monday. This was one of the most alarming weeks of the entire Iran conflict. The brief peace deal that looked promising three weeks ago has completely unraveled.
This was a week that started with oil looking like it was finally settling down and ended with analysts questioning whether the Strait of Hormuz will ever be reliably open again. A lot happened this week!
