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!
WTI crude oil ended the week around $69 a barrel. The current price is below where prices were before the Iran war began. And this was the week the market made clear it believes the supply is actually coming back. From Monday’s peace talk optimism to Thursday’s record flows through the Strait, prices fell nearly $7 in five trading sessions. And yet, by Friday, a vessel attack near Oman, Iran turning back tankers it deemed unauthorized, a revealing of unreported damage to the U.S. naval base in Bahrain reminded everyone that $69 is a trading level, not necessarily a reality.
WTI crude fell to about $72 a barrel today — its lowest point since before the Iran war began — as tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz kept building and Middle Eastern supply rushed back onto a global market that had been short of barrels for months. Here is what is driving the market today.
Oil is ending the week right around $77 a barrel. This was the week the world actually saw a peace deal get signed, watched the first supertankers move through the Strait of Hormuz in months, and celebrated gasoline dropping below $4 a gallon for the first time since March. And then Friday morning brought a fresh complication that reminded everyone how fragile this whole thing still is.
Oil ended the week at its lowest price in nearly two months, settling around $84/barrel, after Trump called off threatened new military strikes on Iran and a Western a ceasefire deal could be signed as soon as Sunday. That is the biggest piece of good news the oil market has seen since this war began. Here is what is driving the market.
