Oil Holds Near $89 as Hormuz Traffic Collapses to Near Zero

Weekend ship-tracking data tells the real story behind Monday’s steady oil prices: five commodity vessels transited the Strait of Hormuz on Saturday, and not one on Sunday, against 31 the previous weekend — a collapse in traffic that markets are now pricing as the new baseline rather than a temporary disruption.

Brent crude traded near $89.40 a barrel Monday, up as much as 1% in early Asian trading, while US West Texas Intermediate rose to roughly $82.83, according to Reuters data. Both benchmarks had already gained more than 5% the previous week after attacks on tankers operated by Abu Dhabi National Oil Company inside the strait and a strike on a Saudi Aramco refinery. The UAE’s state news agency WAM reported Monday that Iran had attacked a third ADNOC-operated vessel transiting Hormuz on Friday, after already blaming Tehran for two separate incidents involving ADNOC ships the preceding Thursday evening — a pattern of repeated, specifically targeted attacks rather than isolated incidents.

The diplomatic track gave markets no reason to expect relief. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said over the weekend that Tehran has not decided whether to resume talks with Washington, directly undercutting earlier reports of progress toward extending the stalled ceasefire framework. Trump, for his part, told Americans over the weekend to accept “slightly higher gasoline prices” while the conflict continues — an unusually direct acknowledgment that the war’s energy costs are being passed to US consumers rather than absorbed elsewhere, and a marked shift from earlier messaging that framed the blockade as cost-free for Americans.

The scale of the disruption is now measurable well beyond weekend snapshots. The Strait of Hormuz normally carries close to a fifth of global oil supply, and the US Energy Information Administration said in its most recent outlook that it doesn’t expect Middle East oil production to return to near pre-conflict levels until early 2027, projecting Brent will average $87 a barrel for 2026 — a forecast that treats the current elevated price band as durable rather than a temporary spike. Commodity Context, an independent research firm, estimated actual flows through the strait peaked around 7 million barrels per day last week, notably below the roughly 9 million bpd figure US officials have cited, a gap analysts have flagged as evidence Washington may be overstating how freely oil is still moving.

None of the moving parts point toward near-term resolution. Oman and Iran remain without a finalized reopening agreement despite earlier optimism a deal was close, US forces say they’re expanding their capacity to escort vessels through the strait even as shipping remains risky enough that some tankers are switching off their transponders, and KCM Trade’s Tim Waterer told Al Jazeera that “markets have not completely lost hope for a deal, but confidence is clearly eroding.”

With weekend transit data now showing days of near-total shutdown rather than gradual slowdown, the next test for prices is whether this week produces any concrete movement on the Iran-Oman track — the one negotiating channel still showing signs of life independent of Washington.