Ten ships in ten days, Brent at $91.62: the screen prices the talks, the strait still prices the war

Oil fell again in Asian trade on Thursday. Brent futures lost $1.14, or 1.2%, to $91.62 a barrel by 02:41 CET, and US West Texas Intermediate fell $1.04 to $85.49¹. The reason given on the trading desks was diplomacy in two wars at once: Russian and Ukrainian negotiators agreed a prisoner exchange in Abu Dhabi, and the Wall Street Journal reported that US Vice President JD Vance was considering in-person talks with a top Iranian security official, which the paper said remained preliminary^1,2. “Markets are falling on expectations that behind-the-scenes efforts are underway to secure a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine and that it is unlikely the Iran war will escalate ahead of the US-China summit next week,” said Hiroyuki Kikukawa of Nissan Securities Investment¹.

That is the screen. Now the sea.

In the Strait of Hormuz, Reuters reports, tankers are still burning and oil is washing ashore³. At least 10 ships were hit in the first 10 days of November, after 37 attacks in October, the highest monthly tally since the conflict began, according to the Washington Institute for Near East Policy³. The International Maritime Organization has confirmed 133 incidents in the region since late February, most of them attacks, with at least 25 seafarers killed³. On Wednesday the UK Maritime Trade Operations agency reported another tanker incident in the strait, and Iran said a tanker had caught fire after hitting a naval mine; Reuters could not verify either report³. Desk arithmetic: 37 attacks in 31 days of October is about 1.2 a day; 10 in the first 10 days of November is one a day. A small easing, not a stop.

The blockade runs the other way too. US Central Command said a US military aircraft fired on and disabled a St Kitts-flagged cargo ship that tried to leave regional waters after calling at an Iranian port on Saturday³. And the conflict has not stayed at sea: Saudi officials said a building belonging to Aramco in Riyadh was targeted in an attempted attack after Houthi-claimed missile strikes on 8 November, with debris causing limited damage and no injuries³.

So why is the price falling? Partly because the oil is, slowly, getting out. Gulf oil exports recovered to more than 80% of pre-war levels in September and October, Reuters reports, helped by US military-assisted transits through the strait and by higher Saudi exports from the Red Sea port of Yanbu⁴. Much of it now moves by ship-to-ship transfer: very large crude carriers shuttle from Gulf ports to transfer points near Sohar in Oman and Fujairah in the UAE⁴. That is not a peace dividend. It is logistics: more loading, more insurance paperwork, more people on night shifts in ports, and a supply chain built around a war rather than after it.

The other part is politics, which markets read faster than they read shipping logs. Investing.com notes that prices had already taken deep losses in the past week after Democrats won majorities in both chambers of Congress, which traders read as more pressure on Washington to end the Iran conflict². But the two sides remain at odds over the strait and the naval blockade, and Iran’s security chief Mohsen Rezaei said Iran would not allow “even a single particle” of enriched nuclear material to leave the country, Reuters reports¹. Washington says nuclear issues must be part of any initial negotiations¹.

The banks that model this are not relaxed either. Goldman Sachs recently raised its oil price forecasts; in an upside scenario it sees Brent reaching $140 a barrel and averaging about $130 in 2027 if Gulf production stays 3.5 million barrels a day below its 2025 average, Reuters reported⁵. That is a scenario, labelled as such by the people who wrote it, not a promise. JPMorgan’s analysts said several of the economic thresholds they expected Washington to avoid had been breached seven months into the conflict⁵.

What should you do with two stories that point in opposite directions? Trust the boring one more. A futures price is a vote on what people expect to happen next week. An attack log, an export tally and a weekly inventory report are records of what already happened. On Thursday the US Energy Information Administration publishes its weekly stocks figures, a day late because of the Veterans Day holiday, after industry data from the American Petroleum Institute pointed to a 9-million-barrel build^1,2. That is the dull machinery doing its job: a number, on a schedule, that does not care who won the midterms.

The constructive reading is real, and it is modest. Ships are still moving, and exports have recovered most of the way. Diplomacy in two wars is at least being attempted in rooms rather than only announced on podiums. The cheaper barrel on your screen this morning is a bet that those rooms produce something. The ship count tells you how far there still is to go. Nothing here is investment advice.