Brent Crude traded at $106.18 on Monday — up 3% on the day and more than 50% above the pre-war price of $67.41 on 27 February. The price trajectory: $91.98 on 10 March, past $100 for the first time on 11 March, a brief dip to $99.83 on false tanker transit reports on 13 March, recovery to $103.14 on Friday, and now the war's highest recorded level.
The driver is physical supply destruction, not speculative positioning. Gulf oil exports have dropped at least 60% compared with February. Fujairah — the UAE's main oil trading and bunkering hub — suspended loading operations after a second drone strike in three days1. The Shah Gas Field, processing one billion cubic feet of gas per day, went offline after a separate drone attack2. Saudi Arabia intercepted more than 60 drones on Monday alone; The Kingdom's oil infrastructure — the world's spare capacity of last resort — faces daily assault.
The IEA's record 400-million-barrel strategic reserve release, announced on 10 March, was intended to cap this kind of surge. It has not. The agency's own March report described the disruption as the largest in the history of the global oil market, exceeding the 1973 Arab embargo. Strategic reserves can dampen speculative spikes; they cannot replace barrels that are no longer flowing. The US contribution of 172 million barrels will take 120 days to deliver at planned discharge rates. The market's gap is immediate.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent told CNBC that oil should fall "much lower" than $80 after the war ends3. He offered no timeline. Deutsche Bank and Oxford Economics have both issued recession and stagflation warnings for the second and third quarters of 2026. For every major oil-importing economy — India, Japan, South Korea, the euro zone — each additional week above $100 compounds inflationary pressure that monetary policy has limited tools to offset. The price tracks physical supply, not sentiment, and on Monday more supply went offline.
