Brent Crude crossed $100 a barrel on 23 July for the first time since 26 May, rising about 6.7% to roughly $100.37 by 1401 GMT, with traders tying the move directly to the previous day's tanker strikes1. The benchmark had closed at $92.09 only a day earlier, the top of a slow four-session climb.
Brent is the international price for seaborne crude, the benchmark behind roughly two-thirds of the world's traded oil, and it carries structural exposure to shipping chokepoints that inland grades do not. For a fortnight it had shrugged off vertical escalation, more nights and a rising toll, because the barrels kept moving through the dark fleet and the Omani-shore reroute south of Hormuz, which kept cargoes reaching buyers even as the northern strait was contested.
A strike in the Bab al-Mandab removes that release valve, so the market is now pricing two contested chokepoints at once rather than one. One caution belongs on the print. Oil has spiked and faded before in this war, clearing $87 on the July blockade before sliding as cargoes found a way round. The second tanker, the Layla, remains an unconfirmed Houthi claim, and a single denied strike could take the premium out as quickly as it went in.
