Brent Crude closed Wednesday at $91.98, up 4.76%. WTI closed at $87.25, up 4.55%. By Thursday pre-market, WTI pushed to approximately $95 — 9% above Wednesday's open. Since 27 February, when Brent traded at $67.41, the war has driven a 41% price increase in under two weeks.
The price has moved through three phases. The first was panic: Brent spiked to $119.50 on Day 10 , driven by the largest single-day percentage gains since late 1988 . The second was relief: Trump's public prediction that the war would end "very soon" and profit-taking on overcrowded long positions triggered a $30 intraday reversal — the market briefly priced in a short war. The third phase is recalibration. Prices have settled into the $90–95 corridor, which represents the market's revised consensus: the war continues, Hormuz remains functionally closed to most traffic, and neither strategic reserves nor diplomacy have altered the supply picture. A spike to $119 and back reflects a single session's fear. A corridor sustained across multiple sessions at $90–95 reflects settled judgement that supply will remain constrained.
The $90–95 range carries specific consequences for economies that import the majority of their energy. South Korea — which triggered its second market circuit breaker in four sessions when prices were spiking — imports virtually all its crude. Sustained $95 oil threatens a current account reversal for an economy already managing semiconductor-cycle weakness. India, the world's third-largest oil importer, will see its fuel subsidy bill expand at these levels, widening a fiscal deficit the government had been working to narrow. Japan, importing roughly 90% of its energy, faces equivalent cost pressure against a weakening yen. For European economies that fell 2–3% on energy-war fears before the worst of the rally , a sustained $90–95 corridor means the energy-driven inflation they spent 2022–2024 unwinding returns through the same transmission channel: imported fuel costs feeding into transport, manufacturing, and food prices.
The weekly gains are already the largest in the history of US crude futures dating to 1983 . The question is no longer whether oil returns to pre-war levels — it will not while the strait is contested — but whether it stabilises below $100 or breaches it on sustained volume. Qatar's energy minister issued his $150 warning when Brent traded at $92.69. It now stands at $91.98, with the IEA's record reserve release already absorbed. The gap between current prices and $100 — at which point central banks in Seoul, New Delhi, and Tokyo would face pressure to intervene — is narrow enough that a single additional supply disruption could close it.
