US Central Command announced no new military action against Iran on Friday 24 July, ending strikes that had run on nearly every night of the preceding fortnight. The same day, President Donald Trump told Axios he was weighing an operation larger than any so far, so the stand-down was one-sided at that point. Iran ceased retaliating by Saturday 25 July, and a separate wire account puts the pause after 13 consecutive nights of strikes.1
The two dates matter to this desk for one reason. A one-sided pause with the President promising more does not clear a war premium; a mutual halt does. European gas priced the difference on the 25th, not the 24th, and the wire's Friday weekday belongs to the CENTCOM announcement rather than to the mutual halt this desk tracks.
The premium was insurance against a Gulf disruption rather than a response to any interrupted European supply, and it had already been priced twice this month on closure claims nobody could verify. Once Iran stopped retaliating, that insurance had nothing left to protect. The fuel leg gave back single digits rather than collapsing, because what unwound was a risk price and not a physical shortfall.
