28MAR

Brent touches $100 on expiry, closes at $97.91

3 min read

17:06UTC

Lowdown Wire

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ConflictDeveloping

Key takeaway

Brent closed 45 per cent above the pre-war baseline after a 21 April round trip through the $100 handle.

Brent Crude briefly crossed $100 per barrel on expiry morning on 21 April before retreating to $97.91 by close after Trump's extension post landed ¹. The close sits 45 per cent above the $67.41 pre-war baseline. Goldman Sachs's $120 Q3 severe scenario remains the operative forecast frame across sell-side desks.

Monday's 7 per cent surge to $96.88 on early extension hope gave Tuesday's market the exit-trigger test, and the trigger was identified as unreachable faster than the futures curve could reprice. The four-dollar round-trip through the $100 handle tracked the moment the market parsed the Truth Social text: blockade continues, unified-proposal condition unmet, tanker risk at the Hormuz gate unchanged. Dated Brent's refusal to settle below $96 across five sessions now is what a blockade-continues price looks like once traders stop pricing a near-term diplomatic resolution.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Oil is priced in US dollars per barrel on global markets. Before Iran's conflict with the US began, a barrel of Brent crude (the international benchmark) cost $67.41. On 21 April it briefly crossed $100 before settling at $97.91 , a 45% increase. The jump to $100 and rapid retreat happened because markets were testing whether Trump's social media post meant the war was genuinely winding down. When traders read the post carefully and saw the blockade was still in place, the price pulled back. But it did not fall far, because the underlying blockade risk had not changed. Higher oil prices feed through to petrol and diesel costs within weeks, and also raise the price of goods that are transported or manufactured using energy.

What could happen next?

Risk
Goldman Sachs's $120 Q3 severe scenario remains live if OFAC designations follow the GL-U lapse and target specific Chinese buyers, which would remove China's demand cushion and drive a supply withdrawal.
Consequence
Brent settling above $96 for five consecutive sessions shifts institutional hedging benchmarks, locking fuel cost inflation into airline, shipping, and manufacturing forward contracts for Q3.

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources from Israel

Israel

Primary parallel: During the 1990 Gulf War oil price spike, Brent crossed $40 intraday in October 1990 and retreated within hours when the market parsed the first credible diplomatic statement. The 2026 round-trip through $100 mirrors that mechanics: expirations combined with a forcing moment, one credible-seeming text (the Truth Social post), and a price collapse once traders identified the text as incomplete.

Counter-parallel: The 2019 Saudi Aramco Abqaiq attack sent Brent up 15% intraday and the price recovered fully within two weeks as spare capacity from Saudi and US sources absorbed the supply loss. The 2026 situation differs: there is no spare capacity large enough to replace Hormuz volume , so the price floor is structurally higher and a comparable diplomatic text would produce a smaller percentage drop from a higher base.

The $97.91 Brent close represents a 45% premium over the $67.41 pre-war baseline, sustained across a second consecutive expiry cycle. Goldman Sachs's $120 Q3 severe scenario , originally conditioned on a ceasefire failure , now functions as the operative forecast frame even during a ceasefire, because the blockade's continuation has decoupled the price from the ceasefire/war distinction.

The transmission channels: tanker war-risk insurance rates have increased 800-1200% above pre-war baselines for Hormuz transits; P&I clubs have imposed voyage-specific surcharges; the futures curve is inverted in the front months (backwardation), reflecting physical scarcity rather than demand-side pressure. Each of these mechanisms is slow to unwind even after a ceasefire is formalised, which is why Wood Mackenzie's Hittle assessed a $10-15 structural residual even in a full-reopening scenario.

Consensus view: Goldman Sachs commodity chief Daan Struyven and Wood Mackenzie's Ann-Louise Hittle both read the $97.91 close as a 'blockade-continues' price rather than a ceasefire price: the four-dollar round-trip through $100 on expiry morning and the fast retreat tracked exactly how quickly traders parsed the Truth Social text , blockade unchanged, unified-proposal trigger unmet, kinetic risk at Hormuz gate unresolved .

Counter-view: Vanda Insights' Vandana Hari argues that Dated Brent's refusal to settle below $96 across five sessions reflects supply-disruption pricing combined with a structural insurance premium now baked into tanker finance globally , so even a full Hormuz reopening tomorrow would leave a $10-15 residual premium in place until P&I coverage normalises.

Key tension: Whether the $97.91 price reflects a reversible geopolitical risk premium that a signed ceasefire could deflate, or whether the war has permanently re-rated the cost of Hormuz tanker insurance in a way that will outlast the blockade itself.

Sources:Windward

Mentions:Goldman Sachs →Saudi Aramco →Wood Mackenzie →Ann-Louise Hittle →Vandana Hari →Vanda Insights →Daan Struyven →Prima →Iran →Truth Social →Gulf War →Brent Crude →Donald Trump →Saudi Arabia →

First Reported In

Update #76 · Trump posts an exit Iran can't reach

Windward· 22 Apr 2026

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Causes and effects

This Event

Brent touches $100 on expiry, closes at $97.91

Market pricing reads the extension as marginal de-escalation inside a continuing blockade, not as a ceasefire price; Goldman's severe scenario remains the operative frame.

Led to

Brent closes at $105.73, dark activity rises

Brent $105.73 close extends the post-extension recovery from $97.91 close after the ceasefire-relief dip

Occurred 24 Apr 2026

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Different Perspectives

IAEA

Director General Rafael Grossi appeared in person at the UNSC on 19 May and warned that a direct hit on an operating reactor 'could result in very high release of radioactivity'. The session produced a condemnation record but no resolution, and the Barakah perimeter was already struck on 17 May.

Hengaw (Kurdish rights monitor)

Hengaw documented three judicial executions and the detention of Kurdish writer Majid Karimi in Tehran on 19 May, establishing Khorasan Razavi province as the newest geography in Iran's wartime judicial record. The organisation's Norway-based operation continues to surface a domestic repression track running in parallel with every diplomatic and military development.

India

Six India-flagged vessels conducted a coordinated cluster transit under PGSA bilateral assurances during the 17 May window, paying no yuan tolls. New Delhi's inclusion in Iran's state-to-state passage track insulates Indian energy supply without requiring endorsement of the PGSA's yuan-toll architecture or alignment with the US coalition.

Pakistan

Pakistan is the only functioning diplomatic bridge between Tehran and Washington. Its role is relay, not mediation in the settlement sense: it conveyed Iran's 10-point counter-MOU in early May, relayed the US rejection, and is now passing 'corrective points' in the third documented exchange of this sub-cycle without either side working from a shared text.

UK and France (Northwood coalition)

Twenty-six coalition members have published no rules of engagement eight days after the Bahrain joint statement; Lloyd's underwriters have conditioned war-risk reopening on written ROE from either Iran or the coalition. Italian and French mine-countermeasures deployments are operating on the in-water clearance task CENTCOM Admiral Brad Cooper's 90% mine-stockpile claim does not address.

Saudi Arabia

Riyadh has not publicly commented on the Barakah strike or the 50-47 discharge vote. Saudi output feeds the IEA's $106 base case; the $5 Brent premium above that model reflects institutional uncertainty no Gulf producer can compress through supply adjustment alone.