Oil: stall premium returns

Brent rose $2.22 to $107.55 and WTI added $2.02 to $96.42 after U.S.-Iran peace talks stalled and Strait of Hormuz shipments stayed limited, Reuters reported reuters.com. The market is trading this as tighter physical supply, not just a headline spike, so any sign Gulf flows stay constrained matters more than the diplomacy optics.

Brent rose $2.22 to $107.55 after U.S.-Iran peace talks stalled and Strait of Hormuz shipments stayed limited, Reuters reported reuters.com; WTI was up $2.02 to $96.42 on the same report. The desk read is that the market had been carrying some probability of a diplomatic de-escalation and cleaner Gulf flows, and that probability just got marked down. The hit is any evidence the export bottleneck persists, because this move is being priced as prompt supply staying tight, not as a one-off geopolitical headline. The miss is any sign flows normalize quickly or talks restart with a credible path to more barrels, which would let some of this risk premium bleed out. That is why follow-through matters: Reuters separately said Goldman lifted its forecast to $90 for Brent and $83 for WTI on lower Middle East output reuters.com, while CBS said U.S. gasoline has already moved above $4 a gallon cbsnews.com. A sustained move above $107.55 reuters.com would suggest traders are pricing a longer supply disruption; failure to hold it would keep this in the headline-premium bucket.