Brent Crude fell to a range of $72.64 to $73.72 on Thursday 25 June, down more than four per cent in a single session and below its pre-war February level1. Brent is the global oil benchmark that sets the price of roughly two-thirds of internationally traded crude, so its level feeds directly into petrol, diesel and inflation worldwide. The war premium that pushed it past $116 at the height of the IRGC closure is now entirely gone.
The fall extends a steady reversal. Brent traded at $76.14 only the day before, and held near $80.59 while Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) still enforced its Hormuz closure. Traders have now priced the benchmark below where it sat before the 28 February strikes, on the same morning the IRGC rejected the Oman corridor and ordered vessels onto Channel 16.
The market is pricing a normalisation the water has not delivered. Mines remain uncleared and need 40 to 50 days of minimum sweeping, foreign-flag commercial flow runs at a fraction of the pre-war 94 transits a day, and no Protection and Indemnity club has reinstated war-risk cover. Traders are treating the corps's threats as bluff and the Korean sailings as the true signal. Because the premium is fully priced out, a single mine strike or one boarding would reprice the entire curve with no buffer to absorb it.
