Brent settled near $93.78 on Thursday, up about two percent, and West Texas Intermediate finished near $86.83, up three — the highest closes in three weeks. [1] The catalyst was rhetorical. President Donald Trump promised the most crushing economic operation ever taken against any country, vowing economic warfare and isolation on an unprecedented scale, while Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent pledged the toughest sanctions in history against Iran. [1][2]

It is worth being precise about what a settlement price measures. It is not tonnage. The physical ledger underneath Thursday's close reads differently: Energy Information Administration data show flows through Hormuz fell from 21.6 million barrels a day before the war to 4.9 million by spring, weekly crossings dropped about twenty percent to 95, and single days have counted as few as three confirmed ships. [2] The market spent months absorbing that loss. What changed this week is the threat of escalation on top of it — secondary sanctions aimed at anyone who trades with Tehran.

So the premium is priced for the announcement, not the outage. That is rational only if you believe the vow adds scarcity that the blockade has not already delivered. X treats the tape as the war's next chapter; traders treat it as a hedge; the water simply carries what it carried yesterday. [2][3]

-- DARA OSEI, London