Oil Holds Near $97 as Strait of Hormuz Transit Collapses
Global benchmark Brent crude held near $97 a barrel on September 7 as ongoing U.S.-Iran military clashes severely restricted tanker passage through the Strait of Hormuz. International energy markets and commodity traders faced sustained price pressures after crude posted its strongest weekly gain since July, driven by heightened threats to Middle Eastern oil infrastructure.
Shipping Bottlenecks Hold Brent Crude $4.66 Above U.S. Benchmark
Early trading on Monday saw Brent crude edge up 0.43% to $96.69 a barrel, while West Texas Intermediate gained 0.60% to reach $92.03. Regional benchmarks showed diverging trends, with Murban crude dropping 1.36% to $103.30 and natural gas falling 1.5% to $2.929. The early market snapshot follows a week of sharp gains where Brent climbed 7.6% to finish at $96.28, while WTI surged nearly 10% to $91.48.
The $4.66 spread between Brent and WTI highlights the acute risk borne by global crude contracts reliant on Middle Eastern maritime corridors. Tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz remains highly unpredictable, with monitoring data revealing that only four vessels transited the waterway during one recent period, compared to a baseline 10-day average of 13 ships. Although U.S. officials noted that up to 17 million barrels passed through on a single peak day, conflict-driven transit restrictions continue to embed a substantial geopolitical premium into daily pricing.
Government officials in Indonesia began weighing a mandatory weekly work-from-home policy to curb national fuel consumption as Hormuz shipping bottlenecks disrupted crude deliveries to state energy company Pertamina.
The market volatility follows earlier price movements this year that saw Brent top $79 before renewed conflict pushed futures above $90.
