9JUN

Brent prints $112.10 conflict high, reverses

3 min read

10:36UTC

Brent crude settled $112.10 on 18 May, the highest conflict-era close, then fell to $110.98 on 19 May as no executive order, OFAC general licence or White House statement followed Tasnim's sanctions-waiver report.

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ConflictDeveloping

Key takeaway

Brent paid $1.12 for waiting one session to see if Trump's post would produce paper.

Brent Crude settled at $112.10 per barrel on 18 May 2026 on ICE Futures, the highest conflict-era close on record, Trading Economics data showed. The benchmark slipped to $110.98 on 19 May after no US executive order, OFAC general licence or White House statement followed the Tasnim sanctions-waiver report from the previous session ¹.

The arc plots cleanly. Brent had been at $104.21 on 11 May , rose to $109.30 on 16 May , reached $110.30 on 18 May as ADNOC committed to doubling Fujairah throughput, and then jumped a further $1.80 to the conflict-era $112.10 print after the Trump hold-off post and the Tasnim waiver leak landed within the same trading window. The single-session reversal to $110.98 came when neither the cancelled-strike post nor the waiver text produced a corroborating document on the US side.

The asymmetry matters because of what oil traders actually bid into. ICE Brent prices the most concrete piece of paper available; a Truth Social post is parsed, but it is not signed. The $112.10 print is, on the data, the moment the market accepted a presidential utterance and an Iranian state-media leak as policy. The $110.98 settle the next day is the moment it withdrew that acceptance after waiting one session for confirming text. The spread of $1.12 between the two settles is the implied price of unverified US-side claims, which is the same spread now passing through into European petrol pumps and shipping insurance, with no Iranian or US action in between to justify it.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Oil hit its highest price since the conflict began on 18 May $112.10 a barrel after Trump posted that he had cancelled a planned strike on Iran. The next day it fell back to $110.98 when no official US documents appeared to confirm the strike had ever been scheduled. This price swing matters because the cost of a barrel of oil feeds into the price of petrol, diesel, heating oil and anything transported by lorry or ship. A $1 move in Brent crude typically translates to about half a penny per litre at the petrol pump within two to three weeks.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

The $112.10-to-$110.98 reversal has two separable drivers.

First, the absent OFAC general licence. OFAC issues general licences before major Iran actions to protect US persons and financial institutions transacting in adjacent markets. Zero Iran OFAC general licences were issued on 18-19 May; professional oil traders use this absence as a leading indicator that the stated action is not operationally imminent.

Second, the Tasnim sanctions-waiver report, which drove part of the 18 May spike, originated with Iran's state-adjacent news agency and was not confirmed by any US-side document. Brent had already absorbed a similar cycle in March Trump post, spike, no instrument, partial reversal and the 19 May reversal is faster and larger than the March cycle, suggesting the learning curve is steepening.

Escalation

The price action is a mirror of the political action: volatile but contained within a structural floor driven by real supply disruption. Neither the spike to $112.10 nor the reversal to $110.98 changes the IEA's assessment that the market remains in deficit through Q4 2026 even if Hormuz flows resume in June.

What could happen next?

Consequence
Professional oil traders now apply a documentary-verification discount to Trump's Iran Truth Social posts the 19 May reversal was faster and larger than the March cycle, indicating a steepening learning curve.
Immediate · 0.78
Risk
If a genuine military escalation produces a Truth Social post that markets treat as noise, the price signal that historically triggers de-escalation pressure on both sides will arrive late or not at all.
Short term · 0.65
Consequence
The structural Brent floor $10-12 above pre-conflict levels persists regardless of verbal-signal noise because the IEA has confirmed 1 billion barrels of cumulative supply loss.
Long term · 0.82

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Primary parallel: In August 2019, Trump's tweet announcing a September tariff escalation on China moved US markets by 3% intraday; when the tariff text was published, the move held.

When subsequent tweets were not paired with published instruments, markets began a 'tweet discount' reducing the immediate price move by 40-60% compared with the first instance. The 19 May Brent reversal looks structurally similar: the oil market learning to apply a documentary-verification discount to presidential social-media posts.

Counter-parallel: The 2011 Arab Spring Brent spike when Libya output fell 1.6 million barrels per day in a matter of weeks shows that genuine supply disruptions hold their price moves regardless of political statement noise. The IEA's 14.4 million barrels per day of Gulf output shut in is a real supply disruption nearly nine times the Libya magnitude, suggesting the structural floor for Brent is not subject to Truth Social calibration.

Brent's path from $104.21 on 11 May to $112.10 on 18 May represents a $7.89 per barrel week-on-week increase driven entirely by unverified verbal signals rather than any change in physical supply. The IEA's inventory data shows the structural deficit would justify $10-15 above pre-conflict prices regardless of daily signal noise.

For European refiners buying Brent-linked crude, the $1.80 single-day move on 18 May and the $1.12 reversal on 19 May represent real margin exposure: refineries that hedged on 18 May at $112.10 and saw the reversal the following session absorbed a $1.12 per barrel hedge cost on their forward positions. Across European refining capacity of roughly 14 million barrels per day, that is approximately $15.7 million in hedging friction from a single Truth Social post.

Consensus view: Goldman Sachs commodities research identifies this as the first instance in the conflict where a Trump Truth Social post moved Brent by more than $1 per barrel intraday and then saw the full move reversed in the next session by documentary absence rather than by a counter-posting or denial. The $1.12 single-session reversal on 19 May is the oil market pricing in the absent executive instrument as a signal not the Iranian response or any military development.

Counter-view: ING's commodities team in Amsterdam argues the $112.10 high itself demonstrates that Brent retains a structural $10-12 war premium above the pre-conflict $67 baseline, and the 19 May reversal to $110.98 does not represent a genuine de-escalation pricing it represents noise within a persistently elevated range driven by the IEA's confirmed 1 billion barrel cumulative supply loss .

Key tension: Whether the market's 19 May reversal means oil traders have learned to discount Trump's Truth Social posts, or whether this is a one-off calibration that will not generalise to the next post.

Sources:Trading Economics / ICE Futures·Trading Economics / ICE Futures·Trading Economics / ICE Futures

Mentions:Brent Crude →OFAC →Amsterdam →ADNOC →Truth Social →Trading Economics →Iran →White House →China →Fujairah →Tasnim →Libya →Goldman Sachs →

First Reported In

Update #102 · Iran signs Hormuz toll; Trump posts a cancelled strike

Trading Economics / ICE Futures· 19 May 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Brent breaks $110, ADNOC bypasses Hormuz

Brent's $112.10 conflict-high settle followed its $110.30 close in ID:3401; the reversal to $110.98 on 19 May came when no US-side text confirmed the Tasnim sanctions-waiver report.

Occurred 18 May 2026

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Trump posts a cancelled Iran strike

Trump's Truth Social strike-cancellation post and the Tasnim sanctions-waiver report drove Brent to the $112.10 conflict high; the reversal to $110.98 came when no US-side confirmation followed.

Occurred 18 May 2026

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This Event

Brent prints $112.10 conflict high, reverses

The market priced a presidential Truth Social post and an Iranian state-media leak, then unpriced both within a single session when no US document confirmed either, setting the spread that drivers and hauliers now pay as a conflict premium.

Led to

Brent at $111, IEA at $106: the $5 gap

Brent's $112.10 conflict high on 18 May resolved to $111.22 on 19 May after Trump's verbal strike stand-down, with no signed instrument behind the reversal.

Occurred 19 May 2026

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Brent breaks $100 as insurers hold

Brent's $112.10 conflict high on 19 May (ID:3432) is the reference peak from which the $13 decline to $98.96 is measured.

Occurred 25 May 2026

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Brent bounces; ship insurers stay put

Brent's conflict high of $112.10 (ID:3432) on 18 May is the upper reference point against which the 26 May $98.83 bounce is measured.

Occurred 26 May 2026

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Brent hits conflict low, then rebounds

Brent's sub-$95 conflict low on 27 May extends the nine-day slide from the prior $112.10 peak (ID:3432), making the 27 May print a continuation of an existing trend rather than a fresh war-risk reading.

Occurred 27 May 2026

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Different Perspectives

Gulf shipping and insurance markets

With Hormuz and Bab el-Mandeb both hostile at once, war-risk underwriters face their first dual-chokepoint pricing problem; the rerouting hedge that absorbed one closure is gone for Israeli-linked hulls. Any deal that reopens Hormuz without a Houthi stand-down clause delivers only partial shipping relief.

Russia and China

Russia and China met IAEA chief Grossi jointly in Geneva on 5 June to coordinate an advance blocking position against Washington's censure resolution, the first documented instance of proactive pre-session obstruction rather than reactive post-vote dissent. Beijing's move came four days after OFAC designated Shanghai Qianye Energy under Iran energy sanctions.

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia was left out of the emergency $4.01 billion Patriot waiver Qatar received on 2 May as its own PAC-3 stocks ran near-empty from intercepting Iranian salvoes over Aramco facilities. Riyadh is on a standard 18-month FMS queue behind a production line booked through 2030, with no equivalent priority to Qatar's Al Udeid basing role.

Houthis (Ansar Allah)

The Houthis declared a complete ban on Israeli Red Sea navigation on 8 June and struck Jaffa, their first attack on Israeli territory since April, seven days after the Tasnim authorisation to activate other fronts including Bab el-Mandeb. The declaration put both chokepoints under hostile authority simultaneously.

Iran

Iran agreed the 9 June mutual halt after the Mahshahr exchange and coordinated with Russia and China to block Washington's IAEA censure resolution, using the Board as a second front while the bilateral pause held on the military one. Tehran's acceptance of the Lebanon carve-out contradicts the linkage position it stated on 1 June.

Benjamin Netanyahu and the IDF

Israel struck the Karun Petrochemical plant at Mahshahr on 8 June over Trump's explicit objection, then agreed a halt with Iran the following day scoped on Israeli terms with Lebanon carved out. Netanyahu's posture is that the IDF will not accept Iranian missile factories as off-limits regardless of US diplomatic timelines.