Brent crude traded above $88 a barrel this week, down roughly 7 percent, as traders priced in a revenue-sharing framework Iran's Revolutionary Guards Corps says it has struck with Oman over the Strait of Hormuz. [1] The tanker count behind that framework has not moved nearly as fast as the price.

This paper's Wednesday account of Iran's own senior officials questioning whether the blockade still pays for itself documented the physical baseline the market is now trading against: just 112 oil and gas tankers transited the strait between August 1 and 19, with roughly 79 percent of that traffic using unconfirmed or dark routes rather than Iran's preferred channel. Energy Secretary Chris Wright's claim of 8 million barrels a day moving through the strait was already disputed in that reporting, with independent ship-tracking data putting the real figure closer to 6 million barrels — well under half the pre-war flow through a waterway that historically carried roughly a fifth of the world's oil supply. [2]

IRGC spokesman Hossein Mohebbi announced the Oman deal in blunter terms than his government's own foreign ministry has used. "Agreements have been reached regarding each country's share of the strait's waters as well as Iran and Oman's share of its revenues," Mohebbi said Wednesday, according to the state-run Sepah News agency, adding that "the US is obstructing this process, causing progress to be delayed." [1] That claim went further than Tuesday's joint statement from the two countries' foreign ministries, which described only an "interim framework" for resuming transits and did not mention fees or announce a finalized agreement. [1]

Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, added a procedural detail Thursday that undercuts the sense of imminent resolution: Iran is still drawing up a formal list of conditions for reopening the strait, at the request of mediators, rather than operating under an agreed one. [3] Those conditions have historically included an end to the US naval blockade on Iranian ports, compensation, and sanctions relief — demands Washington has shown no sign of accepting, and which Rezaei did not indicate Tehran had softened. [3] Qatar's prime minister and foreign minister, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani, met senior Iranian officials in Tehran on Thursday specifically to press "the importance of respecting freedom of navigation in the Strait of Hormuz in accordance with international law" — language that reads as pressure applied because navigation freedom has not yet been restored, not confirmation that it has. [3]

President Trump, meanwhile, repeated his claim that the strait is functionally open, telling the Glenn Beck Program that "the strait is open. We take a lot of ships through the strait now," and citing roughly 10 million barrels passing through in a single day. [1] Iran rejected the underlying claim that US forces had cleared its mines, saying only Iranian officials know where the explosives were placed, and the International Maritime Organization's own secretary-general said last week the strait remained, in practice, not open. [1] Both sides continue to publish numbers nobody else can verify.

Analyst Arne Lohmann Rasmussen of A/S Global Risk Management captured the market's actual read on the week's diplomacy without overclaiming it. The Iran-Oman talks, he said, "represent the most constructive development around Hormuz for some time." But he added the caveat traders seem to be discounting faster than the underlying facts justify: "A temporary shipping corridor is still a long way from a normal reopening." [1] Sentiment has turned. The tankers, so far, have not turned with it.

-- YOSEF STERN, Jerusalem