Brent Crude opened London trading on 8 April between 15 and 16 per cent below its previous close, the largest one-day fall in oil since 1991. The price at $92 is still 37 per cent above the $67.41 pre-war baseline. The escalation tail (Brent towards $130 if the strait closed completely) has been retired. The structural floor (Brent above $90 because Iran is managing transits and not opening them) has not. Windward counted 20 daily transits through the strait as of 5 April, 14 outbound and 6 inbound, against a pre-war baseline of 138 daily, and the recovery to one-seventh of pre-war volume happened before the ceasefire driven by 11 flag states paying Iran's toll. The ceasefire ratifies a recovery trajectory that was already underway, not a return to pre-war operating conditions.
The IEA, IMF and World Bank had jointly described the conflict as one of the largest supply shortages in energy market history. Today's drop unwinds the part of that shortage that was speculative; the part that is structural is still in the price.
