West Texas Intermediate

WTI at Cushing touched $91.74 on 24 July, adding $8.31 over the week on a fresh national crude-inventory draw. By 27 July, on reports of a possible US-Iran strike pause, it had given back nearly all of that gain, settling near $83.51. The retreat repeated on 3 August: WTI fell to $79.57 the same morning Trump said he had called off a planned strike on Iran, its second such reversal inside three weeks.

Each round trip has been smaller than Brent's own swing over the same days, WTI's inland pricing lagging the seaborne benchmark's sharper moves in both directions, the same pattern that has held through the conflict.

Because WTI is priced inland at Cushing, Oklahoma rather than on the water, its exposure to the conflict has consistently lagged Brent's seaborne risk premium. On 15 July it settled at $79.60, $5.13 behind Brent's $84.73, a gap that had been just $3.26 on 6 July and widened further to $5.61 by 20 July as nine nights of US strikes on Iran continued.

Positioning data traces the same insulation: CFTC figures to 14 July showed managed money had cut WTI's net long 69% to 19,783 contracts, though that snapshot predates the 17 and 20 July escalation and cannot show whether funds have added back since. The spread, not the WTI price alone, is the cleaner read on how much of any move is maritime risk rather than a genuine supply shift.