23JUL

Brent holds at $95 as markets wait

2 min read

20:33UTC

Oil prices stayed flat at $95-97, pricing a sustained stalemate rather than confidence in resolution.

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ConflictDeveloping

Key takeaway

Brent above $95 reflects a market that expects neither resolution nor collapse.

Brent Crude traded between $95.20 and $96.69 on 11-12 April, essentially flat from the prior update's $96.39 . The post-ceasefire drop to $92 proved temporary; Brent has since recovered and settled into a narrow band above $95.

The flat range tells a story. Markets are not pricing in a clean resolution. They are not pricing in a return to conflict either. They are pricing a structural stalemate: the Hormuz strait stays mostly closed, supply stays constrained, and nobody knows what happens when the ceasefire expires.

Oxford Economics projects world GDP growth at 1.4% in 2026 if the conflict persists, down from a 2.6% baseline. War risk insurance premiums remain four to five times pre-war levels. Commercial vessels rerouting via the Cape of Good Hope add 10 to 20 days per voyage, and US importer freight rates have risen by up to 50%.

Most equity markets have not yet priced in a sustained conflict scenario, which means the current oil price may be an underestimate of the economic shock if the ceasefire collapses without a replacement framework. Brent peaked sharply higher before the ceasefire was announced; a return to those levels would sharpen the GDP drag considerably.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

Brent crude is the global oil price benchmark. It is trading just above $95 per barrel, roughly $20 above where it was before the conflict. The fact it has stayed flat, neither rising sharply nor falling, tells you what the markets think: they expect the stalemate to continue for a while, but they do not expect a catastrophic escalation either. Oxford Economics, one of the most widely-cited economic forecasting institutions, estimates that if this conflict drags on, the world economy will grow by only 1.4% in 2026, down from 2.6% without the conflict. That 1.2-percentage-point reduction does not sound like much, but at the scale of the global economy it represents roughly $1.2 trillion in lost output, roughly the entire GDP of Spain for a year. For ordinary people, the most direct effect is energy costs. Sustained $95+ Brent flows through to petrol, diesel, gas, and electricity prices over weeks to months.

What could happen next?

Consequence
Markets pricing a structural stalemate rather than resolution means Brent will stay elevated regardless of ceasefire expiry, unless Hormuz transit actually resumes at scale, a signal the first oil tanker full transit would provide.
Risk
The Oxford Economics 1.4% global growth scenario is predicated on sustained conflict without re-escalation; a return to active hostilities would trigger a spike above $110, potentially pushing the global economy into recession territory.

Source Landscape

This story draws on centre-leaning sources from United States

United States

LeftRight

Brent's rangebound posture at $95-97 is characteristic of a 'managed disruption premium': markets have priced in the Hormuz closure but have not yet priced in re-escalation, which would likely push Brent past $110. Previous strait disruption episodes (1980 Tanker War, 1990 Gulf War) saw spike-and-crash patterns rather than the sustained plateau now in place.

The Oxford Economics 1.2 percentage-point GDP reduction has distributional implications that aggregate figures obscure: energy-importing emerging economies (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, sub-Saharan Africa) face a disproportionate squeeze because energy costs represent a larger share of household expenditure. The International Energy Agency has flagged that India, which imports 85% of its oil, faces the sharpest per-capita GDP drag of any major economy.

Sources:Stimson Center

Mentions:Cape of Good Hope →Strait of Hormuz Toll System →Oxford Economics →Brent Crude →

First Reported In

Update #66 · Islamabad collapses: 10 days to expiry

Stimson Center· 12 Apr 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Brent crude recovers from post-ceasefire low

Brent at $96.39 (ID:2211) held essentially flat to the $95.20-$96.69 range on 11-12 April, confirming sustained market pricing of the conflict stalemate.

Occurred 11 Apr 2026

Read story →

This Event

Brent holds at $95 as markets wait

Rangebound Brent above $95 means markets have not priced in a clean resolution, and the economic cost of the conflict is accumulating, not receding.

Led to

Oil surges past $103 on blockade

Brent at $95-97 on 11-12 April jumped 8% past $103 as the blockade announcement repriced markets from stalemate to active escalation.

Occurred 13 Apr 2026

Read story →

Different Perspectives

IAEA (Rafael Grossi)

IAEA inspectors logged Zaporizhzhia's 22nd loss of off-site power, ten of them in the last three months, after a thunderstorm knocked out the plant's sole surviving backup line. Grossi reads the accelerating frequency, not any single outage, as the safety signal now that the plant's redundancy is exhausted.

United States (Treasury/OFAC)

Washington has let general licence 134C, its Russian crude waiver, lapse for 36 days with no successor, the longest gap of the war. Treasury has not said whether the non-renewal reflects deliberate policy or administrative delay, leaving buyers to price in compliance risk rather than wait for clarity.

Slovakia

Slovakia dropped its hold-out on the EU's 21st sanctions package only after winning a 2028 guarantee phasing out Russian gas, the exact pipeline dependency, roughly 80% of its crude supply, that gave it leverage. Bratislava's climbdown clears the package but leaves the same single-veto mechanism intact for the next round.

Russia (Kremlin and general staff)

General staff chief Gerasimov claimed Donetsk captures on 18 July that ISW says it cannot corroborate, extending a pattern ISW clocked at a 5:1 exaggeration ratio earlier this year. Moscow is conditioning its public for a possible autumn mobilisation after September's Duma elections rather than acknowledging the front has stalled.

Ukraine (Zelenskyy government)

Zelenskyy dismissed his commander-in-chief, defence minister and chief of general staff within eight days, replacing Syrskyi with Drapatyi and Hnatov with Skybiuk as protesters demanded Syrskyi go and Fedorov return. Kyiv frames the sweep as a bet on manoeuvre capacity ahead of a feared Russian autumn surge, not the disarray critics read into three changes in a week.

The United Kingdom

Starmer pledged £300 million in Kyiv on 16 July toward Ukraine's Gripen E squadron, adding to the PURL expansion Trump and Rutte had announced two days earlier. London is paying into a scheme built around a shortfall NATO's own published $4bn-plus pledge does not close against Zelenskyy's roughly $15bn stated need.