Brent Crude rose to about $78.67 a barrel on 8 July, up roughly 6 per cent, with West Texas Intermediate (WTI) at about $74.82, its sharpest single-day rise since the war's opening spike in March.1 Brent is the benchmark that prices about two-thirds of internationally traded crude, so a move of this size feeds petrol, diesel and airline fares within weeks. It had sat near $73 after the Al Rekayyat strike alone.
Prices fell through every earlier shock of this conflict. Brent dropped to $71.99 through the June bombing of Qeshm Island, and the second quarter closed down about 30 per cent, the steepest quarterly fall since 2020. What moved the market this time was not one more incident but a strike and a retaliation landing in the same cycle, which raises the probability traders assign to an actual closure of the strait of Hormuz.
Saudi Arabia floated an expansion of a Red Sea pipeline to route crude around Hormuz, and tankers began making U-turns in the Gulf, according to trade reporting.2 The thirty-five tankers that cleared the strait at pre-war rates on 2 July now move under a threat level the market has finally chosen to price. A Saudi pipeline, if pursued, is a multi-year structural hedge rather than a quick fix, and tanker diversions tighten Gulf supply just as OPEC+ was adding barrels.
